Saturday, January 5, 2008

HM Forks It Over

Whew! I'm exhausted. Spending money is such hard work.

We bought a new mattress and box spring combo today. I think that after 17 years, the old one was just sick and tired. While at the mattress store, we sat on some furniture that I liked. After an argument on whether it would fit, HH measured our humble home after installing the new mattress. It was just as I had said. To the inch. I TOLD you women can measure better than men. HH had sworn that the loveseat of the new sofa suite was 6 feet long. I declared it to be 5 feet. The salesman got a tape measure, and proved that it was 64 inches. Which is 4 inches over my estimate, and 8 inches under HH's estimate. I win. Anyhoo, upon measuring that area at home, he found that it was exactly 64 inches. Heh, heh. So he went back after bowling and bought a sofa, loveseat, a coffee table, 2 end tables, and 4 pillows. OK, they tried to tell him the pillows were extra, but when he said he would walk over that extra $30 above what he offered them, they threw them in.

Now we have to stop spending the money that doesn't grow on trees. We had a bit left over from Christmas, and HH got the same bonus as the last 4 years, and I won that $1000...but now we have to stop. Even though I would like a nice Berber carpet one of these days.

HH made us all go to town for the mattress quest. We had to pick up #1 son's glasses. He loves them. He has worn them all day. I told HH I'd drive myself back to town for my PowerBall ticket for tonight. I consider him a dark cloud of bad luck hovering over my head. He stopped and told me to go get it, so I did. Never mind that he parked that Ford F250 4WD with the off-road package at a 45-degree angle. I have trouble getting into that beast on a level playing field. It has those pipe kind of running board thingies. When I get out, it bends my knee too severely, so I generally stick both legs out and drop, without stepping off the running board. This added about 2 feet to my drop. Or so it seemed. HH said, "I'll back out when I see you coming, so it's level." Yeah. Right. HH is like Lucy promising Charlie Brown that she won't move the football. So I came out, and there HH sat. "Oh. I didn't see you." Duh. I hoisted myself up Ford Everest and winched the door shut. I'm surprised I didn't tip the whole truck over during my entry. That's how steep the grade was. I suppose the mattress counterbalanced me.

I did not like getting those tickets with HH. I rarely do it. He is OH SO NOT lucky. I got 5 scratch-off tickets. Every last one was a loser. Darn that HH! I went back to bowling to pick up The Pony, because he's not much help in loading sofas. I told him we'd stop and get a few more scratchers. We still have winnings left from several months ago. I got 3 scratchers. The first was a loser. Then second won $10. The third won $100. That's my Pony! OK, so I spent $56 to win $110. I'm still ahead. I haven't Even-Stevened yet. And I still have my nest egg of past winnings. For those who tell me they never win on scratchers, allow me to give this advice: don't go anywhere near HH. Oh, and buy the $10 tickets, which have a chance of winning of 1 in 3.33. Those others have a 1 in 5 chance.

For those who tell me they never win on scratchers, allow me to give this advice: don't go anywhere near HH. Oh, and buy the $10 tickets, which have a chance of winning of 1 in 3.33. Those $5 and $2 and $1 tickets have about a 1-in-5 chance, and the pay-offs are smaller. So you could spend $10 on 10 $1 tickets, and have a 2-in-10 chance of winning. But you might only win the minimum prize of a ticket. Or two tickets. On the $10 tickets, the minimum prize is $10. It's playing the odds, baby! Any Mabel can tell you that.

I'll leave you with that advice. Don't be callin' me to be your Gambler's Anonymous sponsor, by cracky!

4 comments:

Stewed Hamm said...

Congratulations on your good fortune... although I fear for the vast amount of Steven-ing it will take to get you even once again.

Hillbilly Mom said...

Stewyouhitthatnailonthehead,
The Stevening has begun. I cashed in a $100 winner today, and bought $45 in tickets. NOT ONE WINNER! So the recent wins are Stevening out. Just for that, we are not going to buy any until next weekend.

Redneck Diva said...

Since you and I might possibly share a husband, I will make sure to NOT take him with me when I venture out to buy some lottery tickets this weekend. Is it weird to say that I've never bought a lottery ticket? I was given some for Christmas a few years back, but I've never walked in a store and bought any. But you, you have inspired me to play. You, Hillbilly Mom, are the wind beneath my gambling wings.

Hillbilly Mom said...

Diva,
You get the message. Good to know that I am your Fairy Scratchmother. We have a saying here in Missouri: Know When To Stop. Actually, we have much better sayings than that, but they can not be typed in these here parts.