(Illustration:  Vincent van Gogh’s ‘The State Lottery Office’ found here).

Yesterday, just before I was about to leave work — I manage a liquor store — this clueless dip-shit comes in and upsets the whole fucking day. He does nothing via the store but play the lottery, which within the financial reality of business, is completely useless, and acts like he’s a real, actual customer.
People who play just the lottery are far more bad for business than any kind of good.

Now, in all my years alive, I’ve never, ever come across anything in the public domain that’s so utterly foolish, and so utterly depressing as the lottery. And people who play the lottery are the most dumb-ass, self-centered fuck-heads I’ve ever encountered across a counter. Thin-skinned and emotionally stumped.
Last year, I did a post on this shitty nonsense, and the words still resonate, and vibrate so much it makes me want to dash to the toilet, and unloose the bowels:

I manage a liquor store, where along with the normal fare of booze, cigarettes and the assorted unhealthy byproducts, we also sale lottery tickets — the way-least profit maker and by far the most-labor intensive.
All those news clips you’ve seen in recent days showing clerks dolling out lottery tickets does not in any form or fashion display how those clerks actually feel — they hate it with a passion, and most-likely they also hate your sorry ass for wasting their time.
Just about every crook of the curveball come through our doors every day, drinkers, smokers, tokers, and shitload of asshole jokers, but nothing, however, carries an unnatural feel to it, an oily, moisture-appeal to it, like the lottery.
And it’s way-way-really creepy — the kind of shit-thing Stephen King would cook up in a short story.
The process reminds me of an old Twilight Zone episode, ‘To Serve Man,’ in which humanity gets eaten — “It’s a cookbook!”
People involved in the lottery are strange and creepy, very thin-skinned and easily provoked into displays of emotional outrage.
If you (or anyone you know) play the lottery on any kind of regular basis, you, or that person should go to a quiet place and think hard about how you think about stuff.
The lottery is probably the exact mirror of crime in plain sight

And I always throw this in from the late, great Andy Rooney:

There ought to be a law making it compulsory for anyone who reports the name of the winner of a lottery, to also give the name of all the losers.
The names would be followed by the amount each person lost — just the way they give the amount the winner got.
Lotteries usually pay out less than half of what is bet.
It’s the worst odds of any gambling operation.
You see people buying lottery tickets all the time and it’s obvious that most lottery money comes from the poorest people.
They don’t look too smart either.
…
There was a National Gambling Impact Study and in every one of the 48 States that has gambling — only Utah and Hawaii don’t — the people who make the least gamble the most.
Lower income people in Massachusetts, for example, spent 15 times as much on gambling as people who make a decent living.
I think we’re all willing to accept some responsibility for helping people who can’t help themselves.
We approve of using some of our tax money for welfare to help the helpless.
What I don’t approve of is any government agency buying radio commercials to encourage the poor to waste what we give them on lottery tickets.

The whole process is horrible. On the first and in the middle of the month, we have a spike in scratcher-lottery ticket sales — people on some type assistance spend a shitload, for fucking nothing!
Yet they keep doing it over and over and over and over…
And with an attitude, too, because in their ignorance they believe they’re contributing to society — such fucking bullshit!
From CBS News last year:

In 2011, more Americans played the lottery than regularly attended church, bringing in $56 billion last year alone.
Revenue from that pie is divided in three ways: About 60 percent goes to prize winners; 15 percent to retailers, marketing and operations; and 25 percent, or about $14 billion, goes back to the states for government services.
…
Duke professor Charles Clotfelter is the author of a book on state lotteries.
“It’s very hard to say that these lottery dollars really make a difference,” he said.
Overall, 27 states earmark some or all lottery revenue for education.
In Colorado, the dollars go to environmental protection; in Pennsylvania, senior citizen programs; and in Kansas, some of the money pays for juvenile detention facilities.
Many states bought into the lottery based upon the belief they were adding more and more money for education.
But a 2007 CBS News investigation discovered that was little more than a myth — that state lotteries covered only a fraction of state education spending.
For example, in California last year, just one percent of that’s state’s $53 billion budget for K-12 education came from lottery funds.
“The net effect of say earmarked education lottery revenue on education expenditures is close to zero,” said Clotfelter.
…
As far as what happens to folks who win the lottery?
CBS News’ research department learned that nine out of 10 burn through their winnings in five years.

My underline above for my situation. All that doesn’t mean shit to the lottery players, though. They’re exactly like the Tea Party nit-twits, who scream no government health care, while they’re on Medicare — too fucking hard-headed stupid!
Our store — like all retail establishments who deal in the lottery — gets 7 stinking percent of sales, but the owners of my store says it’s even lower than that, and the lottery is by-far are lowest income maker, yet it’s the most labor intensive. A big chunk of our foot traffic comes from lottery players. There’s two types, one who buys product — alcohol, cigarettes, etc. — and maybe a lottery ticket, and then there’s assholes who play nothing but the lottery.
And the fact is, there’s absolutly no way the lottery helps sales — either you buy product or you don’t, and instead play the lottery. In this particular time when the econmoy has really hurt business, you can see the stark uglyliness of how useless the lottery.
And we have to put up with the horse-shit from those shit-headed players. Maybe it’s the absolute self, despite the facts, that propels these people.
In a marker for the time, the pinnacle of pure self-indulgence:

“Selfie” has been named the Oxford Dictionaries word of the year for 2013.
Researchers claim the words use has been upped by around 17,000 percent.
Other words shortlisted for the award were “twerk” and “binge-watch”.
According to the Oxford definition a “Selfie” is described as a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website.

And, of course, ‘twerk’ is when a dumb-shit shakes his/her ass, and the blame for ‘binge-watch’ lies straight-upon Netflix.

And back to that customer yesterday that so pissed me off it has siphoned over into this morning. When I see someone come in the front doors of the store, and I know from history, the shit-face is ONLY going to play the lottery, my whole being collapses, and I seem to die a little bit inside.
This asshole saw my countenance, and blurted the very-very-worse thing anyone can say to a retail worker (especially anyone in food service): “Having a bad day?”
Of course, I wanted to say: “I was having a great day until I saw your fucking face!”
Instead, I replied with the standard: “No, are you having a bad day?”

Just remember, everyone that sells lottery tickets feel the same way — they hate the shit out of it. Everyone.
And when you buy that ticket, and the clerk smiles at you, he’s actually thinking: “You asshole piece of motherfuckin’ shit, go somewhere and fuck off!”

Well, time to got to the store and start the whole process again.
Rant on the asshole motherfuckers!

I still don’t feel any better.