ALEX CHADWICK, host:
Americans spend an estimated $49 billion each year on lottery tickets. Regular DAY TO DAY contributor Marcos McPeek Villatoro has mixed feelings about the lottery. He sent this reflection on chasing the big prize.
MARCOS McPEEK VILLATORO:
My neighbor Isabelle(ph), from Guatemala, was sitting at the kitchen table with my mother when I walked in from work. No hellos, no `como te va?' no time for Spanish niceties. Isabelle launched into me: `Marcos, I have had a vision.' That means a dream. Dreams that are vivid for Central Americans are not dreams; they are visions. My grandmother had them. I've been known to bore my family with a few. Isabelle had had one, and I was its star.
`We were all gathered around a large table, Marcos. Someone served the biggest pan of fried rice that I have ever seen--a mountain of rice. You dished it out to us, Marcos. Abundancia,' she said. `The rice was so abundant, and we were all so happy.' Then the interpretation. Isabelle looked straight into my eyes: `You must play the lottery tonight.'
She had $10 on her and placed it on the table. `You must go to the grocery store before 6:00. Use my money, but you pick the numbers.' She grabbed my wrist and looked closer at me, her eyes magnified by her bifocals. `You know what this means, don't you?' She smiled over this sure bet.
I was tired. It had been a long day at work, and I was looking forward to some herbal tea and the newspaper. And I hate lotteries. I think they're a way of ripping off the poor with false hopes. Lotteries thrive off desperation. I was about to mumble this self-righteous thought when she yelled, `Before 6:00, when they announce the numbers! Go!' She left.
I had to buy kitty litter, anyway. Mama and I got in the car. On the way my wife Michelle asked, since I was going out, could I pick up our son Ben from school? Why not? My herbal tea date was shot, anyway. `Any other errands you want done?' Michelle mistook my sarcasm for sincerity and gave me a list.
We did errands first: pick up Ben, dry cleaning, gas for the lawn mower. Then Mama said, `Ahora! It's a quarter to six.' And just like that, I lost all logic and cynicism. A wave of Central American mysticism washed through me: `Good God! What am I doing? We're two miles from the store, and all this traffic.' Then the image of me around a giant pan of rice became the most important thing in the world, only now the pan was shrinking. And there's Isabelle on the other end lamenting, `It was a vision! A vision!' Then she wails how gringo realism has blinded me.
We got there in time. I punched in numbers. The machine spat out a piece of paper. I tucked it in my wallet. We went home, watched the news for the winning ticket: no chance. And somehow I didn't feel like a fool. Rather, I felt, well, more alive, awake, not just to the logic of dreary days, but to a mysticism that is uniquely Central American--caught in a dream.
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CHADWICK: DAY TO DAY contributor Marcos McPeek Villatoro is a writer living in Los Angeles. His latest book is "A Venom Beneath the Skin."
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CHADWICK: I'm Alex Chadwick. NPR's DAY TO DAY continues. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.