STRANGER THAN FICTION: LOTTO FEVER STRIKES UNSUSPECTING MIDWESTERNERS

We swore we wouldn't spend more than $1 a week on Lotto. Two dollars, tops.

Ah Florida, land of white sand, retirees and Lotto.

In this state, the lottery is less of a statewide game to fund education and more of a religion. It isn't like Powerball in Missouri, where several states share the game. Florida Lotto has something like 200 scratch-off games, another game where you pick three numbers, a game where you pick four numbers and then the mother of all games, the one where you pick six numbers and win at least $10 million.

And let's not forget the Florida Lottery's weekly television show, where contestants must have the dual skills of knowing their names and being able to throw a ball into a whirling wheel.

I grew up in a fairly Puritan household, where volunteers selling raffle tickets for church fund raisers were turned away from the door with a disapproving glare -- didn't they know selling raffle tickets was promoting gambling?

As a result, I always felt that if playing the lottery didn't put you on the Hades Express, it at least was a huge waste of money.

Just think of it! If you bought a lottery ticket every week for a year, you'd have spent $52! Why, that's enough to feed a family of three at one of those yuppie sports bar/restaurant places so common in Cape Girardeau. (Not counting alcoholic beverages.)

So I didn't buy lottery tickets until I moved to Florida. Then my whole belief system came crashing down around me. It was peer pressure, I tell you. The first week I was here, my boss was collecting money to buy lottery tickets, with the deal being he got a 30 percent cut from the winner.

He's gone now -- went to work for the IRS.

It wasn't long before I was frequenting the convenience stores myself -- far be it from me to rob the little kiddies of all that Lotto money that goes for education.

The Other Half just stared at me with this amused look on his face each time I bought a ticket. "Do you really think you're going to win? Do you know how many people are doing the same thing you are right now?" he'd ask.

"Yeah, but only one of us has the right numbers, BA-BY!" I'd shout, Dick Vitale-like. Then the people in the convenience store would look at me funny, but I didn't care because I was going to be a millionaire in a few days.

Mr. Half was sucked in before long. Last week, when the jackpot was $60 million, I bought two tickets and he bought two.

During a lull at work Saturday, a bunch of us sat around talking about what we'd do if we won.

"I'd give each of you $1,000," I announced. "That'd be plenty to pay for dry cleaning after I peed all over this place."

"Naw, I wouldn't come in here and make a big to-do right away," one co-worker said. "I'd wait quietly until the first time my boss told me something I didn't like."

"I'd have to keep working," another co-worker said. "I'd just get bored sitting around."

There was a moment of silence before we all burst out in maniacal laughter.

Mr. Half and I matched four numbers -- one on each ticket. But one of Florida's two $60 million winners Saturday WAS from Pensacola, although he or she hadn't claimed the prize as of Monday. The other winner was from Sebastian, on the Atlantic side of the state.

I guarantee you the winner from my town was someone either retired or soon-to-be retired. That's always the way. Why can't the big money go to a young person like myself who has countless years of drudgery ahead? A person who'd spend it wisely on something to benefit mankind -- a boob job and liposuction!

I recently read a newspaper article written a few years ago about a Florida man who won nearly $30 million. Almost immediately, his wife filed for divorce and demanded half the cash, he lost most of his friends, his phone wouldn't stop ringing and his health deteriorated. He said he wished he'd never won the money, but he wasn't exactly giving it all away, either.

After all, how important is love, health and phone service, anyway?

Heidi Nieland of Pensacola, Fla., is a former member of the Southeast Missourian news staff.