Take a gamble, eat at Rosso

Dear Lissu,

So nice to hear that WHEN you win the lottery, you’re not even planning to tell me, much less share your winnings. Have you forgotten that your birth took 48 hours?

Anyway, I think I’ll notice when you’re living in a 23-room apartment and driving a Lamborghini. And trust me, I’ll know it’s lottery money because I don’t think you could walk in the high-heeled shoes you need to be a high-priced prostitute.

My footwear of choice is Crocs, so I guess I’ll stick to my day job, which, you may recall, was for many years “professional gambler.” Back in the 1990s, after a months-long winning streak at the casinos in Atlantic City, my accountant encouraged me to go pro for tax reasons, so I did.

Boy, those were the days. Every week my friend Barbara and I would ride the bus from Manhattan to Atlantic City to play the slot machines. And every week for around 12 weeks straight I won thousands of dollars, sometimes even tens of thousands.

I spent some of my winnings on a luxury vacation to Finland. We rented a car and drove all the way from Helsinki up to northern Norway. I think we must have eaten in 30 Rosso restaurants along the way. Don’t get me wrong, I like Finnish food, but there’s a limit to how many rye pizzas a person can eat. I’ve never been as happy to see a McDonald’s as I was by the time we got to Oulu.

Anyway, it was a great trip, but it was also the end of my lucky streak. The only logical explanation I can come up with is that I took the lucky underpants I had worn every single time I won with me. It must have been something in the Finnish water or laundry detergent, because I never won again after that.

My career as a professional gambler was Finnished.

Good luck in this week’s lottery,

Mom