Episode 24: Lottery Luck

In this episode, Donielle and Khrystyna start off the discussion with a funny news story about not-so-big lottery winnings. We then talk about our own luck when it comes to winning things, and imagine what we would do if we ever hit it big in the lottery!

Download the show notes for this episode for lots more helpful language info!

Transcript

D           Welcome to Coffee and Conversation for ESL Listening. I'm Donielle.

 K            And I'm Khrystyna, so grab a cup and join the conversation.

 D           Hey Khrystyna, nice to see you nice to talk to you.

 K            Nice to see you too. It's been a while. So it's kind of nice. 

 D           We keep saying that. You know, it's like always something happens.

 K            Yes. I feel like sometimes we get into a good routine and you know, we have a regular recordings and conversations and then just something happens and life gets away. And then we kind of go for a while without being able to talk, but, but that's okay. We're back together.

 D           Yeah, we are. Well, this time it was the holidays and the crazy cold weather and just, oh my gosh, it's been nuts here. I don't know how the rest of the world has been, but even in the deep South where I live, we've been in a deep freeze.

 K            Yeah, I mean, you can imagine not being in deep South where I am and it's it was cold and then we had all these ice storms and it's just... It was scary for a couple of days to being able to just leave the house and drive or even, I mean, my driveway was a sheet of ice. It's horrible. But.

 D           It's so funny because, you know, it's been a while since I've lived there. And I kind of forget about how cold it gets and just how miserable. And, you know, I saw somebody, you've probably seen these, you know, these TikToks or whatever, where someone goes outside when it's… to show how cold it is. And they've got that boiling water and they pour it in the air. And then it just, you know, steam… evaporates into steam or something.

 K            I mean, it was that cold here. Yeah, it was that cold here. I could have absolutely done that. 

 D           I know, because I saw somebody from your town on my, yes, on my Facebook page and she was doing, you probably saw it. 

 K            Oh yeah, that's right. Yes. Yeah. I know what you're talking about. Well, you know, the sad part was that we actually got some snow this time, but we couldn't do anything, we couldn't go and play in the snow because it was so cold.

 D           Yeah, yeah, that's no fun.

 K            That's okay though, I mean, it's winter so...

 D           Yeah, but you know what is fun? Hanging out here talking with our coffee and conversation. 

 K            Oh yes it is!

 D           Okay, so well, we have something a little bit different today. You know us, we're always, you know, mixing things up, doing something a little different. 

 K            Yeah!

 D           And today what we're going to do is we're going to talk a little bit about just a funny story that's in the news. And actually, I'm going to talk about it because Khrystyna does not know what the story is. So she's going to kind of react to it. You know, she's going to hear it for the first time. Maybe she's heard it before. Who knows? It's possible. And then we're just going to kind of see where the conversation takes us on that topic. So you ready?

 K            Oh yeah, I'm here sitting in suspense. I have no idea what you came up with this time. 

 D           I mean, you sound scared. Don't be scared, it's nothing weird.

 K            I don't know. I don't know.

 D           Okay, so today's story is about someone who won the lottery. Yeah, and I want to give a little background information because I think probably most people know what a lottery is. I think they have them pretty much all over around the world, so you know what they are. But basically, I want to make sure that everybody gets the idea, kind of to set this up. So, you know, every state hosts their own lottery and you pick some numbers. Um, all this money goes into a big pool and states do this because they get to take some of the money, you know, help fund schools or other public projects, things like that, and the rest of this money goes into a big jackpot. And if you win, if you hit it big, if you win that jackpot, you can win a whole lot of money, right?

 K            Yes.

 D           And you kind of get a lawyer because you want to figure out how you can, you know, get all your earnings, all your winnings, I should say, and you don't tell your family and friends because then suddenly you will have lots of family and friends coming at your door and all that kind of stuff. But one thing that you do is you get your picture taken, right, with the giant check.

 K            Which is interesting, you don't tell your friends, you don't tell anyone, but then you have picture taken with your giant check and it's all over the place.

 D           Yeah, well, you know what is interesting about that? I actually think that a lot of these lottery, people who are in charge of that, whoever are running it, they actually make you take this picture. It's kind of, yeah, it's kind of required. And the people that sometimes that… they win a lot of money, they don't want anybody to know. And I believe I have seen people take a picture with like a mask or something on their face because they have a...

 K            No way!

 D           picture holding the check or whatever but they don't want people to know because everyone's gonna be coming to them for money.

 K            Well, yeah, that's the thing, right? That's why I was like, I always thought it was strange that they make this such a public thing with a picture and all that. And, you know, but okay. Okay.

 D           Yeah. Right. So well, that's what happens with the big winners. Then you have, for example, sometimes you don't get, say, what is it? Five numbers, six numbers. I don't know how many it is in the lottery. I don't remember anymore. I think it's six. Something like that. 

 K            I think it's six, if I remember correctly. Maybe.

 D           So maybe you got four of the numbers or maybe you got three of the numbers correct. So you still might win something, right? But you're not going to hit it big. You're not going to get that big jackpot. And you're not going to get the picture taken.

 K            Right

 D           Unless you're this guy. This guy is named Tyler Heep and he won exactly one dollar.

 K            Oh!

 D           Yeah, one dollar. And he said to himself, you know what? I want the picture.

 K            Why not?

 D           Why not? Yeah, so he said, I want the picture. And the funny thing is they told him, okay, yeah, sure. Why not? So they took a picture and they gave him that giant check and it says $1. Right? And they even wrote in the memo section, stinking rich. 

 K            That's hilarious.

 D           Yeah. And I'm going to want to mention that too. Sometimes when we talk about people being really super wealthy or rich, we use these funny words like stinking rich or filthy rich. You know, it sounds negative, but I think kind of we have that idea that maybe a lot of money is a little bit dirty somehow. So he's stinking rich. Yeah. So that was his story. He thought that would be really funny. And by the way, I want to say I have, I'm going to link these, the story, the articles here in our show notes. And I want to stop for a second and say, I think it's a really great idea to look at articles like this. I'm not talking about news stories on CNN or something like that, that are kind of serious. These kinds of stories are great because the language you get, the informal conversational language is really great. So yeah.

 K            I agree. I agree.

 D           So I will definitely get that in there and you'll see a lot of great language in there. So, yeah, so I just thought that was a really funny story that, um, that he would do that. Now, why do you think he would do something like that?

 K            I don’t know; I mean, it could be maybe he wanted attention. Or maybe he wanted acknowledgement, you know, or just being funny. But you know, funny thing you started talking about winning [the] lottery, and I was like, okay, is it her way of, you know, like hinting that she won [the] lottery? 

 D           Oh, please!

 K            Maybe you did. That you were trying to kind of tell me through the story that hey, look what happened to me the other day. I was like, oh okay. Apparently not.

 D           Yeah, no. No, I'm sad to report that is not the case. No, it's just a funny little story about this guy. He thought that, you know, hey…it even says here, he says he wanted to feel like a big winner and big winners get large oversized checks. So he thought it would be fun to do that. 

 K            Very interesting.

 D           And with his “big winnings”, he… I want to say this phrasal verb--this is really good: when you blow your money on something or you blow it on something, it means you spend all your money in a, you know, you spend it all basically. 

 K            Yeah, yeah. And it doesn't necessarily like, it could be just whatever, like random things that you don't even need. But you just blow it on something. Yeah.

 D           Usually when you blow it, it's usually in something we don't need. Exactly. Yeah. And we have this little expression sometimes when, especially like if you give a kid or something, a dollar and we'll, you'll say, Hey, don't blow it all in one place, right? Cause it's a little joke. Because a dollar doesn't take you very far. But yeah, they said, um, he blew it all. Of course he did. Um, going towards a tank of gas. And I thought towards a tank of gas, it's probably like a teaspoon of gas. Maybe.

 K            Nowadays prices, yeah, probably is teaspoon of gas. Oh my gosh. But what if, I mean, I guess maybe he was just being funny or I don't know.

 D           Oh, yeah. Yeah, I would say I thought to myself, you know, I could see myself doing something like that just to get a laugh because it, I mean, they legit gave him a dollar check. And he was like, No, no, I want the big picture, the big check. So I thought that was funny. 

 K            Oh my gosh. That's hilarious.

 D           And it also reminded me of something else. So when, when I was on the cruise, you know, Isela and our little crew there. They had a show, a game show. Have you ever heard of Deal or No Deal?

 K            Yes, yeah.

 D           So they did a version of that there, but you know, on the real show, you get like a million dollars or something. But the premise is you've got 20 suitcases [actually, I meant to say briefcases here] and each one is numbered one to 20. And it starts with one that has a penny in it. And then the biggest one has, I don't know, a lot of money, right? And so one by one, you try to eliminate some suitcases to try to see if the one that you chose has all the money in it. There's more to it than that. But bottom line, guess how much money Isela won because she got chosen for this. Guess how much she won.

 K            I don't know, $1?

 D           Oh no, one penny.

 K            Oh my gosh! Poor thing.

 D           Yeah, it was bad. And they put it in her account too. She looked and said, oh, there's my deposit of one penny. 

 K            Oh my gosh, that's ridiculous.

 D           Yeah. And we walked out and some guy said, “Congratulations on your big win.”

 K            Big win! Well, you know what, that would absolutely be my luck. I've never like, you know, the funny thing is as lucky as I am in life with everything and everyone I have, or met or you know, when it comes to winning money or some sort of monetary… terrible, absolutely no luck. I think I've played lottery maybe like a couple times just for fun of it, or this one time, somebody gifted us a couple of tickets, lottery tickets. It was just something, some sort of like a little housewarming gift or something like that. I think it was our realtor actually. She, as a housewarming gift, she sent us a couple of lottery tickets. Big fat zero. That's what I won.

 D           Yeah, same. I remember being in a job for a while and we had a pool, a lottery pool going on and we did it for quite some time. We all pitched in like two bucks or something a week and we ended up with a lot of tickets and I think the most we ever won was like, a free ticket.

 K            Free ticket. Yeah. So, um, you know, do you remember like when they have those game shows on TV and all these like when they call somebody from audience and then they start going crazy and scream and all that and dance? I did that once. It wasn't it wasn't a TV game show. It was a trivia night that some sort of I don't remember what place it was here in town. We did a trivia night and then they did a little… like a raffle or something and I won a $10 gift card to Beth and Body Works.

 D           Ooh!

 K            And I was so excited because I never win anything like that. Lottery, trivia, nothing - raffle, not ever. I was so excited. I was one of those crazy people on a TV show that, you know, comes from the audience screaming and dancing and jumping. It was, it was, it was one, not one of my finest moments in life, but.

 D           Yeah, I don't win anything either, I mean, generally. And so if I do, it's like, oh, this is amazing. I went to… this is embarrassing, but I went to play bingo. 

 K            Oh!

 D           Yeah, I played bingo. And at our table, I think five of us ended up winning a round that day. It was really strange. And I won, I think $25. And I was like, woo!

 K            Well, look at that.

 D           Yeah, but generally I don't win.

 K            You know, it's interesting when you talk about bingo and I'm kind of sidetracked here. I noticed that usually old people play bingo. Like, what?

 D           Yes, that's why I said…don’t laugh

 K            or kids.

 D           Yeah.

 K            Llike my son at school they sometimes have like a school-wide bingo or they do… you know like a little activity with bingo for kids so it's usually either old people at like senior centers or they have senior bingo nights or school so I know you probably didn't go to school with kids, but what are you doing with old people playing bingo?

 D           Yeah, actually, so, um, it was, I don't know, I got invited by somebody. I was like, Oh yeah, sure. What else do I have to do on a Friday night, but go to this church and play bingo with a bunch of older people.

 K            I'm glad you could fit that in your schedule.

 D           It was surprisingly easy. It was kind of sadly easy.

 K            Well, you know.

 D           And I'm going to bingo tomorrow night. Yes, this one is going to be fun, I think. This is going to be at a tapas bar. 

 K            Oh, that sounds wonderful.

 D           A TAPAS... I have to say that clearly. T-A-P-A-S, tapas. When I say that sometimes people say what!? Yeah.

 K            It took me a second there. TAPAS, not topless. Okay.

 D           Right. So yeah, it's going to be good. And they've got some prizes and we'll have some, you know, drinks and food. So that's fun.

 K            Yeah, that does sound like a fun thing to go to. That's good, that's good. I think bingo is kind of like coming back, like one of those cool things people do. I've heard that they have like themed bingo, like a different, you know, like 90s bingo, or like everybody dresses up for… that were like 70s bingo, where everybody has to dress up and they have the music and the whole thing is decorated like for those times. So I think it's coming back. I think it's kind of a cool thing to do.

 D           It is. There was another, I feel like I'm doing an awful lot of bingo lately. This is getting embarrassing, but we also went to another bingo place. It was also at a, like a bar/restaurant kind of thing. And this one was music bingo. So you had on your bingo card, um, a name of a song, and then they would play just a few seconds of it. And so you had to quickly try to figure out like, Oh, this, this is the song, you know, and, and that was a lot of fun.

 K            That's more almost like a trivia bingo.

 D           Yeah, yeah. But it was fun. They had some good songs on there. So yeah, that was definitely fun.

 K            Nice. That's cool. So I was gonna ask you, do you know anyone, like in real life that won a lottery ever?

 D           No, I mean, if I know them, they kept it hidden from me because they didn't want me knocking on their door. No, I don't think so.

 K            I actually do know somebody who won a lottery. But they won a lottery before I … long time before I met them. So my husband's uncle, so my mother-in-law's brother, younger brother, older brother. One time, it was a long time ago, I mean, like I said, my husband and I have been married for 18 years, so that was, I would say, at least 10 years before that, if not longer. So he and his coworkers in the office where they work together, all pitched in and bought a bunch of lottery tickets.

 D           Okay.

 K            And one of those tickets was a winning ticket. So when they won, they all equally split the winnings, all the money.

 D           Nice, was it a big jackpot?

 K            It was pretty big, I heard. Yeah.

 D           Nice. I can't even imagine that. Like, what would you do if you won a big jackpot? I mean, sometimes like when you think about some of these, these jackpots that are so huge, like a billion dollars or something. I mean, generally, there's like a few people that might win. So you would split it. But even so, sometimes it just seems like such an outrageously large amount of money. I don't know if I'd know what to do.

 K            I know exactly. It's like, sometimes you say, oh, I wish I won a lottery or I wish, you know, but then I'm thinking like, I wouldn't know what to do with all of that. Like would I, would I invest it? Would I save it? Would I pay off my house? Would I give it away? Like, what do you do?

 D           Yeah.

 K            And then I'm thinking like, oh my gosh, that's so much money. But then if I do this, and that, that might not be enough.

 D           Yeah, you know, I think that, you know, we have an idea of say, oh, like a million dollars, that's so much money, but it's actually not that much money in today's world. And if you're not really careful, you can blow it all. And it can be a really big problem. In fact, I mean, I don't want this to take a dark turn here, but there have been a lot of people that talk about how lottery winners have actually ended up broke after... Yeah, like really, things happen. They just, they get too crazy with the money. They go wild and then it's gone. And then, then what? It's pretty sad.

 K            Right. It is sad. And you know, you, a lot of the times, like when you suddenly get a lot of money, you start spending and buying things and doing this and that, and then you kind of start getting used to that life. And then because you're not smart enough how to manage that, you're right. Then you spend it all. And then what do you do then?

 D           Yeah. So, um, first thing probably to do is get a financial advisor. So all of you folks out there who are going to win the lottery, hopefully, you know, some of you, um, do that, get a financial advisor.

 K            Yep. That's, that would be the smartest thing to do. 

 D           Unless you just won a dollar, I guess it's okay.

 K            It might cost you more to get a financial advisor. 

 D           Oh my gosh.

 K            A dollar. Oh my gosh. But what would you do with a dollar? Like I wouldn't even know what to do with it.

 D           With a dollar? Um, yeah, just kind of look at it. That's about it.

 K            Pretty much. Like, it's not even enough to get a cup of coffee.

 D           What can a dollar buy now? I mean literally, what can you buy for a dollar?

 K            Is there anything in fast food you can even buy?

 D           You might be able to buy a donut. How about a donut? You could probably buy a donut.

 K            I feel like a single donut is more than a dollar nowadays.

 D           You think so? Not where I live. We've got a really fantastic donut place and I know I can buy a donut for less than a dollar. I have done so. On my way to the Zumba class, you know? We talked about that before. 

 K            Well, you need to get all that energy.

 D           Yeah. Yeah, you gotta get that energy.

 K            You need to get the calories so you can then get rid of them in your Zumba class. Otherwise, what's the point? 

 D           There is none.

 K            But you know, I mean, even a dollar store, right? There's the Dollar General, Dollar Tree. They're not a dollar anymore.

 D           They are not. Mm-mm. Yeah. 

 K            No. Hmm, that's a good question.

 D           So really, I mean, I think I could be sitting here for a long time trying to think of something I could buy with a dollar, especially once you add tax. I know other countries don't have that issue, right? 

 K            Nope.

 D           You know, the price is the price, but with us, it's whatever the price is plus tax.

 K            Yeah. Plus tax. I remember first time when I was visiting the States, I was like, okay, I got 20 bucks, I can buy this, this and that and then go to the store. I'm like, Oh, cool. Then you get to the cashier and they're like, actually, it's uh, 22 something. I'm like, what do you mean 22 something? 

 D           I know, you gotta sit there and do math.

 K            That's not what the price says. But I think it’s only…I don't know, is it just the United States that does this trick on people? Or does Canada do that too? Or no.

 D           You know, uh, well, they've got the vat thing that, but I think that's still built into the, the price of the, of the, um, item. I'll have to ask my Canadian neighbor. I don't remember. It's been too long since I've been to Canada, but yeah, you know how we are here. We always got to do things just a little bit different. Yeah. But anyway, back to that lotto. What if you won a million dollars? What would you do?

 K            I have no idea, seriously. I feel like maybe a little bit of everything, maybe give away some, either to, you know, a charity or a good cause or my family. I think my family could use help right now with everything. 

 D           For sure.

 K            But maybe invest or save for later. I mean, invest probably… would definitely invest some of it because, you know, you always want to think about future.

 D           She's so practical. 

 K            I am practical.

 D           You are.

 K            But also, spend some money on traveling.

 D           Oh yeah, definitely. I agree with you there. So other than…

 K            What would you do?

 D           oh… Yeah, I think I, yeah, I didn't say that, did I? Yes, I would travel too, absolutely, yeah.

 K            Okay. Just a whole million on traveling?

 D           No, no, I would, I would invest, I would save a little bit. I don't know.

 K            You're so sensible.

 D           No, I'm not. I'm, I'm bad. Yeah. I would go crazy, but my husband would probably be like, no, no, no, no, no. We are going to put this here and we're going to do this. And I, in fact, let me put this far, far away from you. Save you from yourself.

 K            It would be the opposite in my household. I'll be like, no, we can't touch that. That's, that's good. No, we can spend this, but not that. And my husband was like, come on.

 D           You know one person in the relationship has to be the practical one. Otherwise, you know, it just all goes bad

 K            That's okay, that's alright.

 D           So other than winning lotteries and things like that, have you ever won anything else?

 K            Well, that $10 gift card to Bath & Body Works.

 D           You're gonna ride high on that for a long time.

 K            Oh yeah! I bought three whole bottles of soap for that!

 D           Three, but you know, oh yeah, I know what you're talking about. They've got that buy two, get one or buy one, get two free kind of thing. Yeah.

 K            Oh gosh, I don't think so. Like I said, when it comes to like winning some sort of like a monetary or, you know, anything that has to do with money. I don't think I've ever won anything. But at the same time, I am absolutely most probably fortunate, luckiest person in the world with everything in my life.

 D           That's more important, honestly. I mean, you know, the money is nice, but you know, that can only do so much for your life, you know, so to think that you're lucky everywhere else, that's wonderful. That's the best.

 K            Right, right. What about you? Have you ever won any money or any lottery or anything else?

 D           I’m thinking, you know, besides that big bingo haul I had, I've won a couple small things here and there, but did I ever tell you about my luck with Tina Turner stuff? I'm sure I must have. I don't know if I even talked about it here.

 K            Well, you mentioned that you went to her concert. And I think, didn't you go to one of the TV shows and she was there as a guest? 

 D           Yeah. I don't remember if I talked about it on this podcast before, so I won't get into it too deeply. 

 K            I don't think so.

 D           No? Okay. Good. So yeah. Um, by the way, Tina Turner, may she rest in peace. Um, we, we lost a, you know, great performer last year… 

 K            Legend. Yep.

 D           …so I was a big fan. I still am a big fan. Um, but there was a period of time that I was just hitting everything lucky with everything having to do with her. It was very strange. I showed up at the Oprah Winfrey show with a friend of mine who was crazy fan just like me. And so we weren't even supposed to be there. We waited it out. Finally they let us come in. They put us in the front row. We didn't even have tickets. I know it was ridiculous.

 D           And then he notices her manager sitting in the, um, in the audience and he goes, Oh, that's a, forgot his name. Mr. Davis, I think, Oh, Mr. Davis. He's from Poland. And he says, Oh, I'm Tina's number one fan from Poland. And he just goes on and on and on. And so he [Davis] says, Oh, okay. Okay. He said, do you want to meet her? And we're like, yeah! 

 K            Oh my gosh.

 D           So I didn't tell you this? Yeah. So he took us backstage and we met Tina. Yeah, we did. That was really cool. So shout out to Arthur, you know, without him, you know, we wouldn't have done it. Yeah, it was really cool. So there was that. And then I won tickets. I had another situation where I got tickets really, really close. But then when I got there, the person in the second row asked to switch seats so that he could be with his party, plus pay me $40.

 K            Woohoo!

 D           So I was like, oh, you mean you want me to take these second row seats and you want to give me money too? Um, sure, you know, so there's like a lot of things like that just kept happening and I was like, wow, this is really weird

 K            Was that, do they call it like a lucky streak?

 D           Yeah, I had a lucky streak, Tina related, that's for sure. And that's about it.

 K            That's really cool. You know what? And things like that, I think sometimes are more important than winning money. 

 D           Oh yeah, that was some great experience.

 K            The experiences and yeah, yeah. So that's really cool.

 D           Absolutely. Yeah, so anyway, I thought this was kind of fun, something to introduce a different kind of topic. 

 K            Yeah, I agree.

 D           All right, well, so I think on that note, until next time, here's to good coffee, good vibes, and great conversations.

 K            Cheers.

 D           Cheers.