Tipping the Lottery

Joanie had never attempted such a grand event, and her skin tingled as she thought about it. The pick lottery numbers were being announced while she watched television. The idea gave her a sense of purpose like she had never felt before, not when the twins were born, not when her mother had died, not when her little sister asked her about boys for the first time. The TV dinner was getting cold and the fat in the gravy was congealing into white blobs. She looked around at the her home: tilted photographs, cracks in the paint, stained carpeting, a dog too lazy to leave its bed. This was not the life she had imagined for herself when she was younger. It was not even the life she had hoped for when she was in community college failing most of her classes. But her she was, and she was seeing a way out.