Chain of Fools

Today I received an actual, honest-to-goodness, old-fashioned chain letter in the mail. The US mail. You remember the postal service? Yeah. This isn’t some sorry chain e-mail promising me a million dollars from Bill Gates or threatening that I will eaten alive by rabid hamsters if I don’t forward to thirteen people in thirty-nine seconds.

This letter came with a scratch-off instant lottery ticket. I am to retype the letter with my friend’s name at the top of the list, and add my name in slot two. Then I am to send a scratch-off lottery ticket to six people I know, or return the unused ticket to my friend if I don’t want to play.

Well hell, I want that lottery ticket. “Over $3 million in prizes from $9 to $90. Top prize: $9.000.” The music from the Pennsylvania lottery (which my sister once pointed out sounds oddly like the intro to Megadeath’s “Symphony of Destruction”) plays in my head when I look at it. I’m warming up the edge of my dime right now.

I guess if I scratch off the ticket, I have to play, and then I’ll have to venture into Meijer to buy lottery tickets for six lucky people in my address book.

I remember the last time I participated in a chain letter scheme, back in the summer between high school and freshman year of college. A different friend sent me a letter with a pair of underwear as part of a “pretty panty” exchange. I was instructed to buy a pair of pretty panties for the next girl on the list, and if I kept the chain moving, I would receive no fewer than sixteen pairs of new, sexy panties.

The next girl on the list requested size twelve. I headed to Boscov’s, the department store where the grown-ups seemed to shop, and found some size twelve ladies’ underwear. Do you know how big size twelve ladies’ underwear are? Hint: I could wear them as a bolero vest. Nevertheless, I found a suitably lacy, satiny, aquamarine-colored pair that fit the bill. They went into the envelope and off to the unknown recipient.

Weeks passed. I did not receive any additional panties. Not one single pair, pretty or otherwise. I complained to my friend, but she really didn’t have anything to say about it.

Well, I scratched off my ticket. The odds of 1:4.88 were just too great and I didn’t win a dang thing. But it’s all right. I should receive thirty-six different tickets in the next few weeks.