F8

I was wrist deep in a bloody massacre at the kitchen sink when my husband called out, "We were going to get a lottery ticket!"
I turned, dark red cherry juice dripping from my fingers, rolling in disturbing little rivulets down my wrists as I too remembered and exclaimed, "Oh yeah!!!"
Cherries are forgotten, as Alan explains why he remembered. Today is August 8th, of 2008. That's 08/08/08. We don't buy lottery tickets very often but when we do we like to buy them connected with some oddity number freak-show of a calendar date.
Who wants to buy a lottery ticket for no reason?
Well I mean beyond the gazillion dollar reason, we like to have an extra reason. An anniversary date, or at 11:00 am or pm if we can manage it. Or on February 22 at 2 pm. We figure if fate aka the universe wants us to win a gazillion dollars then it won't be from some random ticket we bought on a 6th of January. Who buys a lottery ticket on the 6th of January? Not us. It's not superstition, it's genius.
"I got an email newsletter from that psychic I've been reading about. That's what reminded me about the odd date today. It's supposed to be lucky."
I gaze across the living room at Alan as he shares this extra juicy tidbit of news. A psychic says today is lucky......hmmmmm....
I stand, cherry juice drying on my fingers and on the counter and the floor where I've already dripped it as I consider the fact it's already evening and I've started prep work for homemade yogurt with massacred cherries.
Should we bother running out to get a ticket after all?
"Get this, it's almost 8 now!" Alan has turned around completely in his computer chair and faces me, our eyes lock.
In that moment a decision is made, no words are needed, our bodies move in a balletic like synchronization for a moment as we are spurred into action.
I fling cherry juice into the sink, lick it from my wrist and permanently stain my dish towel as I hurriedly wipe my hands off.
Alan is rising from his chair, he goes for our shoes as I shove the bowl of yogurt back in the fridge. I leave the cherry carnage as it is, pits, juice, cherries scattered across my sink and cutting board. Probably across me as well but it doesn't matter.
We are on a mission.
"There's only 5 minutes to 8." I call, heading for the bedroom to put on my *outer world clothes*. You know, the clothes you wear out in public that are different and usually less comfy than the *at home clothes*.
We are a well oiled lottery ticket purchasing machine.
He grabs our wallets, I grab the keys, and we are out the door. Breathless with excitement, off to buy a lottery ticket as close to 8 pm as we can on 08/08/08.
Winning the lottery would be fricking sweet any day of the year, who am I kidding, but winning it from a ticket purchased on 08/08/08 at 8 would be better than any damn cherry on top.
We are laughing as we fling ourselves into the car and head out.
"Should we go to the 7-11?" I ask, carefully directing the car down the darkened driveway despite our hurry.
Alan thinks for a moment, the 7-11 is where we usually buy our lottery tickets. "Too bad there's no 8-11."
We groan in unison, man that would have been awesome. And damn the 7-11, it's more than 5 minutes away and on top of that it's numbers don't even add up to 8 or a variable of it. 7+1+1 =9 Damn.
At the main road, turn signal clicking away Alan and I share a laugh. Could any one else in the universe have as much fun buying a lotto ticket as we do? Even if we don't win we are sure getting our dollar's worth of excitement out of it. We turn an every day, even mundane task into an event filled with excitement and meaning. We imagine the hand of the universe directing us to buy a lottery ticket today of all days. So much more exciting than just "oh ho hum buying another ticket for no reason on just another average day."
"We should go to the little store."
Alan's words cut through the giddy silence in the car.
"O.k." We've never been to the "little store" it's an itsy bitsy glorified liquor and cigarette place that's right at the intersection, like 3 minutes from home.
"It would be nice for them if we won," he continues on as I am already turning into their tiny little parking lot, "they could use the money."
We remember how we read one time the place that sells the winning ticket gets a special fee from the lottery people.
See how kind we are universe?
See how we're thinking beyond ourselves. Deciding we'd like our gazillion dollar winning ticket fee thing-a-ma-jig to go to the little guy at the corner.
We leap out of the car, well, we leap out as best you can from a little Honda Civic and rush over to the doorway of the teeny tiny little store. Like a sign from the lottery Gods there is a ticket station standing outside, right by the entrance.
We are ready.
We are so ready to buy this ticket.
We are so ready we brought our own pen in case of a pen emergency at the ticket station.
We fill out two sections to buy two tickets. One ticket we choose numbers that are purposefully and well thought out. The other we randomly point the pen and fill in, no thought at all.
See how clever we are? Figuring we are covering both ways the universe might wanna direct us to win. Through randomness or purposefulness.
We buy the 2 tickets.
The rush of speed is over, we made it. We don't know if we bought it exactly at 8 pm but we were as close to it as we could possibly get.
On the way home we pat each other verbally on the back for supporting our local little store and for following our instincts.
"We could fix up the car when we get the money." Alan says in that soft voice one gets when thinking out loud.
I snort. A definite un-lady like snort and Alan joins me in laughing. "I don't mean like pimp it out."
I laugh, "I didn't really think you did. You mean like convert it to electric or hydrogen run or something."
"Yeah, maybe fix the wires in the dash."
I glance down at the gaping hole in our dashboard where our many, many, mannnny car stereos had once oh so briefly lived.
"I kinda like the wires. It says 'this cars already been hit, move it along'. "
Parking the car in the driveway we head back inside.
"Hey we met in 2000, I mean we knew of each other's existence in the year 2000 which means that we are on our 8th year of knowing each other."
Alan turns and stares at me and we grin. Two different faces but damn it all we're wearing the same grin, that special "8" infused ticket just got a littler eight-ier. Sweet.
So were the cherries and homemade yogurt.
No snack tastes as delicious as one that is made and ate basking in the aftermath of a lottery ticket splurge and the foremath of lottery ticket winnings.
By the by, the lotto ticket numbers are drawn Saturday night at 7:57.
Do you know how fricking close to 8 that is? Fricking close enough that we will check our numbers at 8 exactly.
Should you hear a decidedly 8 flavoured screech from the vicinity of Southern California round abouts 8:01 pm than you can probably guess what happened.
If all you hear is an amused chuckle and the sound of a ticket being gently torn up and scattered into the recycling bin then you can guess what happened also.
Either way, it'll be fun.
Either way, it's up to Feight now.