My luck ran out long ago

Another week has gone by without a phone call telling me I've won the Nova Scotia firefighters weekly 50/50 draw.

Which means another week that I spent planning how I was going to spend the money has been thwarted again.

More likely than not, the scenario will repeat itself again this week.

That's okay, I'm happy to just support the cause each week.

Still, winning would be nice too. It's kind of like the housing market. For the better part of the past year I've been searching real estate listings every day to see what's out there. My oldest son has been paying rent on apartments in HRM for the past three years. It's expensive and it adds up. Eventually, it just seems to make more sense to spend that money on something that has his name on it instead of someone else's.

But I've also purchased tickets on the QEII Home Lottery to support that cause too. Now comes the dilemma. What if we buy a house and then I win a house?

“That's not going to happen,” my husband says.

I know he's right, although in this case that would be just my luck. Not winning the house. But winning a house after buying another one. Just in case, I've told my son we'll have to postpone the house search until after the draw. LOL

Back in the day, I used to be very lucky when it came to raffles and, especially, 50/50 draws.

But we're not talking thousands of dollars in winnings. We're talking about game day minor hockey 50/50 draws where the jackpots usually ranged from $50 to, if you were really lucky, around $120.

But hey, a win's a win.

I was especially lucky during my youngest son's first year of Atom A rep hockey. I won the 50/50 several times that year.

Then my luck seemed to rub off on my husband too.

We were at a tournament hosted by the Shelburne Flames. He won the 50/50. When they asked him for his name, he said it was Mr. Walker.

It made for some baffling moments in our section of the stands when they announced Mr. Walker from the Yarmouth Mariners had won.

Huh? Who?

He joked with the other parents about how everyone claps or cheers politely when someone else wins when deep down they really wish it had been them instead.

On the outside you're all, “Yippee! Greg won!” he said.

On the inside, not so much. So when I also won a 50/50 draw during that same tournament and they asked for my name, I did what felt natural.

I told them I was Mrs. Walker. No word of a lie, my husband won another 50/50 during that tournament. I think people were starting to suspect a 50/50 conspiracy plot on our part – or, better yet, on the part of those darn Walkers! Who invited them, anyway?

A few weeks later at one of our games, a couple of parents were in the stands selling our team's 50/50 tickets. I purchased my usual arm's length for $5. In a split second after one mom had put the tickets in my hand, another hockey mom named snatched them out of my grasp and handed me her tickets.

“You always win,” she laughed. “So I'm taking your tickets.”

“I don't always win,” I told her. The game went on and I left my seat for a while. When I came back everyone was asking me what my ticket numbers were because the winning ticket had been drawn and no one had claimed the prize yet.

I checked my numbers.

Yep, Mrs. Walker strikes again. “I can't believe it!” said the mom who replaced her tickets for mine.

I offered, repeatedly, to give her the winnings, or, at least, half of the pot but she declined saying, “No, you won. It's my fault for stealing your tickets.”

Hmmm . . . maybe Mrs. Walker should buy my firefighters 50/50 tickets this week. And also a QEII Lottery Home ticket.

After all, she seems luckier than I am.