Zero sum game

My recent hermit status necessitated a trip to the Convenience Store to procure a few items, and as you might expect, a tale came of it.

In order to get to said Store, I have to travel parallel to a main thoroughfare and cross over several minor ones. While I can normally traverse this course with no incident, today seems to be hell bent on establishing itself as one full of incidents! While crossing the first small intersection I had the walking man shining in my favor, so I looked to the main road to check for obstacles heading in my direction. There was indeed a car idling in preparation to make a left turn that would have put he and I in the same general road space. Now, I know I had the right of way, but I gestured slightly to the vehicle to go ahead and make it's turn.

I can't say why it is that I do this, but I always let cars go in front of me when turning in this situation. I suppose that I can sympathize (with the passengers at least) with the difficulty of getting a left on an major street in this city. Honestly though, I was in no hurry and I had no further impediment to my crossing, where as Joe Driver had some folks queued up behind him who, no doubt, were about to lay on their collective horns. So, even though I am merely a foot traveler, I was ready to let him go.

Then the magic started. He waved me, I waved him more earnestly, trying to convey the above paragraph to him via wide smile and swinging appendage. He doesn't go, I don't go, this goes on for 4-5 seconds until the inevitable happens - we both concede and we are locked in a sort of urban street dance, me and the 87 Saab. Alas, I jet across the intersection because I start to think that he thinks that I might be angling to bait him into some kind of pedestrian v. Saab personal injury suit. The remainder of my crossings were less eventful, boring even, but you'd probably be surprised to know how often I am a participant in this situational tango.

As you may have noticed, I'm on kind of a tear of luck these days, so in an effort to take advantage of some momentum I bought 2 scratch off lotto tickets at the store. I don't think that I've actually bought one since I moved here, but I used to be quite the scratcher back in my MO days, so surely I could count on IL Lottery beginners luck, right? Well, kind of. I won $4. While I did spend $4 to win it, no one could say that I didn't get a little thrill when one of My Numbers matched a Winning Number. And that jolt? Turns out it was free.