The Short Humour Site









Home : Writers' Showcase : Submission Guidelines : A Man of a Few More Words : Links

Writers' Showcase

Craps
by Eric Miller

Craps Hazard had a bad habit; no, more precisely, an addiction. He could not walk by a vending machine that sold scratch-off lottery tickets without buying one. He rarely got a winner. When he did, it was either for a free ticket or just a few dollars at most. Craps lost a lot of money, owed a lot of money, and was in a lot of trouble with his creditors and his wife. His clothes were constantly covered with the scrapings from his tickets. He suffered from carpal tunnel syndrome, the repetitive stress injury to the wrist, due to all the tickets he scratched using a coin, as well as from all the dice he tossed at the craps table.

One morning, while at the supermarket, Craps put a dollar into the scratch-off lottery ticket vending machine, as he was leaving with his purchases. A 3 year old toddler, walking with his mother, saw Craps insert the money. The toddler ran to the machine and pushed several buttons. A ticket popped out. The toddler ran off with the ticket, with his mother and Craps chasing him. The toddler’s mother grabbed her son, telling him to give the nice man his ticket. The toddler made his displeasure known with a world class tantrum. Although Craps was a little more than irritated, he said to forget it, but the mother insisted on giving him a dollar.

Later that week, the front page of the local newspaper had a large color photo of the toddler and his family holding a check for $30,000  from the State Lottery. A wonderful story was told about the toddler bringing good fortune to the family because he pushed the right button.

Craps contacted the family and threw a world class tantrum. They gave him $1499.50.

He never won again.