The Gift Of The Scratchi

Once upon a time, in a little village, just south southwest of Santa’s Workshop, in the North Pole, there lived an older couple. This couple was each on their third marriage, although that doesn’t have anything to do with anything…I’m just making conversation. Now the couple didn’t have much money. The husband had started a potato washing business that wasn’t as profitable as it was expected to be, and the wife hadn’t been to work since she was diagnosed with elephantiasis in her left leg. Needless to say, Christmas was around the corner and the couple had no money to buy each other presents.

The husband thought, “Well it’s Christmas…I have to get my wife something!”

So he decided to rummage through the couch cushions and look for loose coins. He looked and looked and looked, and finally found 22 pennies, 3 nickels, one of them minted in the year 1978…which really didn’t have anything to do with anything…just making an observation…2 dimes, and 2 quarters for a grand total of $1.07.  The husband looked at the coins in his hand and sighed. What could he possibly buy with this? A pack of gum? A toothbrush?

Meanwhile in another part of the house, the wife was looking under their bedroom mattress. All year she would stash a dollar here and a dollar there as a little nest egg for Christmas. The problem was that all year she would also borrow a dollar here and a dollar there with the intention of paying it back, yet she never would. Currently all that resided in the mattress Christmas nest was one dollar.  A single tear rolled down her cheek as she got a paper cut on the tip of her finger from grabbing that one little dollar bill.

“What can I do with this?” thought the wife. “Buy a pack of playing cards? A plastic kazoo? A band aid?”

Both the husband and the wife both felt a little dejected, a little depressed, and a little tipsy because both of them were drunks…nothing to do with this particular story, just throwing it out there for discussion.

The husband grabbed his coat and called to his wife that he was going for a walk.

“OK!” she called back. There was little chance she would join him due to her left leg being the size of a VW Bus thanks to the elephantiasis, so the husband had a few moments to himself to think.

So he did.

He thought and he walked, and walked and thought, until he stopped in front of a convenience store. He stood there for a moment as his breath billowed in front of his face from the cold brisk air. He could see the worry lines on his forehead mirrored in the window of the store. He could also see the beer case, because as explained earlier, he was a raging drunk. And lastly he could see the counter where the lottery tickets were advertised. In his pocket, his hand clasped on the coins and he headed into the store.

Come that Christmas morn as the husband and the wife gathered in front of their Christmas tree which made Charlie Brown’s look like a lush Evergreen, he took her hand, and patted her enormous leg and whispered,

“I love you. Merry Christmas.”

He pulled out the  scratch off lottery ticket he bought with the change and handed it to her. He also handed her one of the left over pennies that he didn’t spend. This was so she could rub off that mystery silver cover that hides the winning numbers from the naked eye.

She smiled, and rub the penny back and forth over the ticket, slowly and with determination, all the while biting her lower lip. She turned the ticket to her husband when she was done, and said,

“We won.”

“What?” asked the husband gasping for breath. “Really?”

“Yes,” she said with the biggest grin. “We won a free lottery ticket.”

“Merry Christmas,” said the husband.

Merry Christmas,” replied his wife and slipped the dollar she had found into his pants pocket.

This doesn’t really pertain to the story, but later they got snockered on eggnog…you know…just throwing it out there…for conversations sake…

Merry Christmas to all.