Last night we went to a Chinese restaurant in Tel Aviv. The food was good and the experience was pleasant. The story happened right before we went in. Standing on the street corner near the restaurant waiting for our friends to arrive, I spotted a lottery booth a bit down the street. It was the typical small orange booth, covered with banners and streamers shouting “50 million shekels!” My Mom always said that her father, Zaidy Sidney said “the lottery is a tax on idiots”. With that in mind I read the lower part of the streamer, which said in Hebrew, “it just takes five”. I assumed that meant it takes five shekels to win fifty million, and that seemed like a good deal. I have never bought a lottery ticket in Israel before, and had no idea what to do. I plopped down five one shekel coins on the counter and said “Hello, could I please have a ticket for 50 million shekels?” Having no idea what I was talking about, the vendor just stared at me with a puzzled expression. Undaunted, I continued “you know, the lottery with all the banners all over your booth?” There were so many banners and streamers coming out of the top if the booth it made it look like a giant Hershey’s kiss. Finally understanding what I wanted, the lottery guy explained that the 50 million shekel lottery ticket was a minimum of 11 shekels. Confused and not willing to shell out more than the five shekels lying on the counter, I took one of the scratch tickets he offered. It said I could win 25,000 shekels, and I figured that would be nice too. It turns out that the “it takes just five” refers to picking five numbers for eleven shekels, and not five shekels to win 50 million. Another lesson in Israel learned. I was unsure what to do with the lottery ticket, which was decorated with pictures of fish. I guess fish is a lucky thing; they should come to Northern Canada where we have plenty to spare. I was unsure where to scratch and what the rules were, so I gave it to Shira. She scratched it off and won another ticket. We then scratched off the second ticket and won ten shekels. The guy asked us if we would like a couple more tickets or maybe pay him another shekel and get a ticket for 50 million. Despite the allure of being a thousandaire or a millionaire, we decided to cash out and use the money to tip our waitress. Everything worked out well in the end, I have a feeling I won’t be playing the lottery again anytime soon.
2 comments:
Great story sid. I think that's the way they can get people like you and I buy the 11 shekel tickets. but with 25K shecks what can you buy?
I am sure there must be something you could buy with 25,000 shekels... I remember seeing somewhere you can buy a huge chunk of Bazooka gum for about $100. It was something like a kilo all in one piece. Maybe a couple of those and an order to Perl's via Fedex would spend twenty-five thousand shekels.
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