Yesterday as I was looking over my e-Bay stuff (and noticing how much stuff I have to ship - like right now) I had the really strong feeling that I should put a certain purse up for bid again. I had tried it 3 times before. This thing was a dog....

No matter how much I lowered the price I couldn't even get anybody to look at it. Sometimes that happens - it can be that way in any market. But it was almost as if someone was yelling in my left ear "list the purse! list the purse!" The Winkle, subtle though it usually is, can sometimes be annoying.

So I listed it.

It got a bid in 5 minutes.

That got me thinking. If I can find my prom dress from 20 years ago in the Goodwill, my friend's lost eyeglasses and box turtle - all of which are things I found last week - then why can't I find, say, a winning lottery ticket? Okay, another winning lottery ticket besides the one I bought 12 years ago? (it paid $1,300 which was the exact amount I needed to make a downpayment on a safer car at the time) Okay, that sounds greedy.

And besides, I know why. For starters, for me to find something it has to be there to begin with. In other words, I can't very well find a ticket that will win a lottery if there is not a ticket in existence which will win the lottery. And no, I'm not even supposing that the numbers are pre-destined. What I'm saying is that both the tickets and the winning numbers only exist in a field of probabilities. Because I don't have any numbers pre-selected that I play all the time, both the numbers that a machine would generate and the numbers which will be picked don't actually exist in the concrete world at the time I'm buying a ticket.

An even better reason is that, the first emmotion I had when realizing I had 5 of 6 lottery numbers 12 years ago was fear, not delight. I'm not sure winning the lottery would be good for me. Well. It might not have been before I had this demylinating disease. Now I'm not so sure.

A still more clear reason is that I almost never play. All right, solved that problem.

But, okay, then, how come I at least can't find a better job? Scratch that: a job that pays the same but is closer to home. Wait, wait - A job that pays the same, or close to it, helps other people and is within 20 miles of my house!

For that, I guess I'd have to have a resume and be reading other want ads besides those in the County Times. After all, to get The Winkle, I have to at least do the work of going to a second hand store or an auction. It's not like merchandise walks through my front door and lines up to be sold on e-Bay.

Still, I don't mean to be ungrateful, not at all. I just wish that, since I can turn $2.00 into $20.00 I could find a way to turn $200.00 into $2000.00. Of course, I'd have to not be scared to take the risk with the $200 in the first place. Hmmm. I don't see that much of a change happening in my conservative personality any time soon. After all, I've been this way since I could walk.

Okay, great. Now I understand my limitations. Crap.

It's like the other night when I rushed home to have dinner with The Hub and he told me he had to leave already because his hours changed.

"You didn't tell me that! How was I supposed to know?" I said.

"I don't know. I thought I told you. Besides, you're psychic." he said. He says this all the time, though I almost never say so.

"I'm not THAT psychic!" I replied.

Anyway, if you hear of any good jobs, let me know - by phone or e-mail, okay? Don't just think about it really hard.

I guess I'd better work on my resume. And make sure I mail those boxes.