Green hard hat cat and I are linked spiritually
Nice of you to buy me some Monster and choccy
I’m happy to do it
This hasn’t happened to me very often, but when it does happen I honestly just like… I dunno, feel bad for the person? Like I’ll just assume that the person has ended up with a gambling problem, and that it’s that problem which impels the person to act like a nuisance. So I just wait patiently and say nothing, because saying something would feel like telling a smoker “you’ll get cancer”, like it’s true but it’s not really what the person actually needs to hear, right?
I don’t know if I have the right attitude towards these “lottery people”, though. Am I pitying them, the bad kind of pity? Who knows…
I would like the Lottery People to be courteous to those who will be taking way less time and let them go ahead. Most of the time I get lotto jammed is when I’m buying smokes, but the buying process is really fast. It doesn’t even require a gambling problem for it to be a nuisance, it’s just a lengthy process to check the tickets and cash em out. Even people doing it casually will usually get a few tickets.
The empathy leaving my body as someone holds up the line buying and scratching tickets one at a time. Those things really need to be outlawed, as far as I’m concerned.
Lotteries are reactionary poor taxes imposed by neoliberal states that can no longer raise their own funds for projects so have to create “for profit” gambling rackets to fill in the gaps of cutting taxes on the rich. They also serve a useful ideological purpose for controlling the poor, giving them an avenue to make it big and join the capitalists. Why be a pain to the state and improve conditions when YOU could be a lucky winner and be rich!! They exaggerate the likelihood of it happening and pretend anyone could win at any time to keep this illusion alive.
I feel like there’s also some state propaganda involved in making it seem like lottery winners just blow all their money and become poor again. I don’t know how true that is but it’s always smelled wrong to me.
That lottery winners typically do become destitute again is true, but it’s not because they blow all the cash.
Lottery winners are subject to a lot of pressure from other people who want that money. Hostile divorces, scams, and familial financial abuse are all really common. Winners are rarely informed of the financial instruments the wealthy typically use to protect their wealth, and thus have a much higher financial attrition rate.
They also tend to be less aware of and prepared for future financial precarity. The concept of being “set for life” seems to result in a really high rate of underinsurance, so when an unexpected financial hardship like a house fire or major car accident occurs, they’re typically unprepared for that hardship.
If I won a lottery I would donate almost all of it nearly immediately to various causes and family and friends, it would solve a lot of problems for those around me. I don’t think I would be willing to hoard it up in a stock portfolio and cold shoulder everyone around me. I know homeless people, people with crippling medical debt, people who are about to get evicted, people who have severe alcohol or substance abuse issues. I could fix nearly all of this if I was just loaded.
Here’s what I think is happening. The neolibs defund the state and replace the gap in funding with lotteries.
Neolib/Liberal propaganda to defend these policies: Join the lottery! Your life isn’t hopeless in this capitalist hellscape, you have a small chance to live the life of your dreams and get as lucky as other rich people. (Appeals to desperate, uneducated poor people)
Conservative counter-propaganda, they are fine with the lotteries but take issue with the framing: There’s no luck involved in being rich, rich people are ontologically superior beings with improved money management and self-control. Even if you somehow get our level of wealth, you will quickly revert to your wretched natural state. Anybody who ought to be rich, is already rich, through hard work and genius. (Appeals to smug, educated middle class and rich people)
When I worked at a gas station, I always dedicated one register to lotto and one to regular customer. If you wanted lotto you had to wait in the lotto line.
Ended up making the lotto folks speed up because the regular people would just wait and get silently irritated, but other lotto people would get pissed when they had to wait so a sort of natural “buy, scratch, get back in line” system formed.
“Yeah, and I’ll take a box of Marlboros from that locked cabinet ten feet above your head.”
just about everything sold in a convenience store is some kinda poison or scam.
I mean, except like the bottled water/juice and the BC powder you’re getting for that soul shattering hangover working you over under the hardhat after you just blew chunks behind the dumpster in the parking lot.
it’s not even 8am and already 90°… fucking a, can somebody else drive to the job site while I just close my eyes and meditate on a life that doesn’t so closely resemble my own?
lemme get uhhhhhh 6… uhh… 13… uhh…
Seriously, it would be one thing if they had their mind made up on how they wanted to throw away their money it’s another thing when they get to the front of the line and spend 5 minutes deciding what color they want to look at while they lose money.
I worked at a place that sold them and dealing with those people was exhausting. I get they have an addiction and I have empathy for that, but they sometimes engage in that addiction in the most annoying ways possible.
I used to have all these people who wanted to know what number each book of tickets was on to look for patterns, or want to buy from a book that had a lot of winners, or buy from a book with few winners, or only want late/early in a book. Then they will proceed to lose $200 10 bucks at a time.
Every time I’m stoned and find myself at a gas station this will happen to me
The lottery is a tax on hope
Hard hat cats is a great idea tbh it should be forced into a thing
