The end of the year is approaching and the Mega-Sena New Year’s Eve frenzy will begin. The one who pays more than a CDB from Banco Master, more than a secret amendment from Centrão, more than a contract with a relative of a judge of the Supreme Court. It’s money that never ends.
Come December, we’ll have a bunch of people walking around with lottery tickets in their hands looking stunned, making crazy plans: a jackpot for the guys, a random jackpot for their mean cousin—ten thousand, and if they complain, it’ll be five—a gift for the nice doorman, a joke for the bad boss. Some will end the lives of many people, others will go buy Coca-Cola with a shell of Pepsi and will never be seen again by their family or friends.
- Hypochondriacs’ Digital Handbook: With the Internet and social media, illnesses and paranoia fall into our hands
- Today’s neocafajeste wears sandals, shorts, short-sleeved shirt, leather bag and omnipresent MST cap
Everyone dreams of six figures.
Except me who, unfortunately, does not have the gift of delusional hope or wild faith. From a young age I was taught that only rain falls from the sky, and even then you have to be careful, because sometimes it rains a lot. The wisest thing is not to give in and prepare for the worst. Other: If you need luck, you haven’t tried hard enough. As you can see, it was a light, loose, almost Dionysian education. He did what he did.
It’s not just Mega-Sena that I don’t trust. I don’t believe in casinos, tiger games, bingo, animals, draws at fairs or even winning straws at Chicabon.
Reading it like this, it even seems that I am a pragmatic sage, a sensible fairy, one of those enlightened beings who are above ordinary feelings. But no.
In the game, I have a weak point: the pools.
This is when my rational pragmatism turns to dust, when paranoia and malice emerge: what if the winner is the people in the lottery I didn’t enter? A winner from Goiânia, Teresina or Maricá, I don’t care. The panic is when they announce that the winner is from Rio. I have nightmares where friends and acquaintances drive past me in limousines or yachts, waving glasses of sparkling wine and throwing cigar ashes in my face. “Who told you not to participate?” » they shout in unison, amidst Machiavellian laughter and small planes with hundred-dollar bills.
I know the odds of winning are one in fifty million. But I also know that there is a type of bad luck that ignores statistics and has a correct address: the group that hasn’t joined their friends pool. Science should study the sarcasm of numbers. I don’t believe in luck, but I have already realized that urucubaca can fall on you like a knife.
This is why December is the month to enter the swimming pools. Everyone: at the office, at the club, at the bar. I discover its existence and ask to enter immediately. Remember that waiter who was kicked out of the Cervantes pool? He’s about ten, fifteen years old. The employees who participated each raised half a million. The butler, poor guy, even entered the distribution, but he had to take his ten reais for the ticket and left. He was left out. He still regrets it today.
Perhaps resentment and paranoia are the prerogative of humble and base people, and readers have a zen soul, impassive in the face of others’ sudden fortune and lost opportunities. They are elevated beings, without a doubt. How envious.
All I can do is solve the problem of selective pragmatism and spacious resentment in psychoanalysis. And, just in case, also join the pool of psychoanalysts.
About The Author
