From Mops to Millions

It was a Tuesday afternoon in the small college town. It had been raining all day long. The sky was filled with dark clouds as far as the eye could see. There was no relief in sight. I had just mopped the lobby floor for the third time today, and quite frankly I was getting tired of it.
These young and rich college kids had no respect for my humble attempts to give them something clean to come home to. I know a clean lobby and hallways aren't much to brag about but I still had a lot of pride in my work. In my thirteen years as Housekeeping Specialist I brought home the "Golden Broom" award a record of four times. I can honestly say that my constant attention to detail and perseverance gave me the cleanest dormitory on campus.
It seemed that every year the new student body would care less and less about having clean common areas. They would ignore my "Caution: Wet Floor" signs. They wouldn't care about walking on my wet floor with their dusty shoes. They wouldn't care if they would run into while I was mopping the hall way. To some of the kids this was a big joke, a big game. What was this great big world coming to when all my efforts were overlooked by the people I was doing it for.
Martha, my lovely wife kept telling from about the sixth year on, as my complaints would become more and more, to find another line of work. With me being only a high school graduate with no job skills to my name I’m probably in the only line of work I would ever see myself doing. For the most part I was happy to do just that.

Then it happened....

Martha got sick and needed an operation and I couldn’t afford the medical costs. I would spend my nights, awake and thinking of a way to find the money. Then one night a thought came to mind, and the next day I put it into action.

It was a Friday afternoon and I was once again mopping the lobby when the college students would be coming in to hurriedly gather their things for the weekend of parties and short trips home. There were three students in particular who would always go out of there way to make my job more difficult. After my first out rage they never stopped trying to annoy me. So my plan was going to include them.
They were born well enough off where they could live a comfortable lifestyle. These three kids still wanted everything handed to them so I knew that they played the lottery quite regularly. Also I knew that they were all sporting lottery tickets to tonight’s drawing I knew from their conversation that they were staying in town this weekend but they were going to go for a drive. I hurriedly started putting an extra coat of wax on the floor. I used straight wax. I didn’t dilute it or nothing. I was whistling this tune while I was spreading my plan into action. Then the first two came out of their rooms and walked through the lobby. They unfortunately walked around my fresh mopping.
The third one came out of his dorm room, seen me mopping and whistling. He started to smile and gave me that devious look, I knew what he had on his mind...walking through my clean floor. He zipped up his leather jacket , started to comb his hair, and he stepped into the sea of fresh wax. When his heel hit that wax he slipped. This slipping action caught him off guard and before he or even me realized he was horizontal in the air. The comb went flying, he was flailing his arms in a poor attempt to regain his balance. Then everything happened in slow motion.
His head was pointing down towards the floor, his legs were pointing more towards the ceiling. His arms were closer to his sides than his head. His head hit the tiles, then his neck and back, and then arms and legs. His feet hit the floor and then you heard the thud. His breath escaped his open mouth and his eyes closed...He was unconscious.
I looked around the lobby, I looked out towards the parking lot, and I looked back around the lobby. No one was looking so I went looking through his jacket pockets and I found the lottery ticket that he had purchased and I quickly made it mine. I put it in my pocket.
The boy woke up, looked at the ceiling and wondered how he got there. Then he remembered the wet floor and his favorite janitor. He slowly sat up and rubbed the back of his head, took a deep breath and tried to get up. His legs still couldn’t find anything for traction so he looked like Bambi on that pond of ice. He was as graceful at getting up like a fly who has fallen on its wings.
Finally he gets up, brushes himself off and walks out of the lobby. I finish up my wax job after diluting my solution and going over the whole area again. When it is the way that I like I punch out from the college time clock and I go home to my wife. I tried to tell her about the happenings at work but she is having a bad day and she just wants to left alone in her agony.
I say a little prayer before turning on the television to watch the nightly lottery drawing. The lady in the blue sequin dress is turning all the machines on as the announcer is giving the spiel of the legalities of the drawing. Now she walks back to the first of the 6 machines and opens up the chute and a white ping pong ball comes up. She turns it around to reveal the number to the camera. 17 was the number. Stepping to the next machine and the number is 3, then the next, 12 and the next 34, and next is 54, and...
I look down at the lottery ticket and I see these numbers 17, 3, 12, 35, 54, and I get a little nervous because I know that I wasn’t going to win the lottery. I still had hopes of matching five numbers and still winning enough for Martha’s surgery. I had crossed my fingers and my toes, I was about ready to tie myself in a knot if I thought it would give me more luck and the last number was drawn....

Well let’s just say that I looked at the ticket wrong and Martha and I are living on some tropical island. We are living quite nicely in our 40 room mansion, six cars which one is a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow, our Thoroughbred horses, and our 150’ sailboat.