THE MAGIC OF THE LOTTO

Bear with me, this will be a meandering post. But worth your meander miles, I hope. On friday I stopped at our corner haji mart, known to us lovingly as Akbar and Jeff's. It was busy, filled mostly with the residents of the projects just north of the main road. It seems that these folks have discovered the store, much to the discontent of the yuppy pricks who have been invading our neighborhood just south of the main road. The owners of the haji mart have become used to the upwardly mobile white customer base from our neck of the woods, and increasingly intolerant of the ethnic folks that tend to have drunken, crack addled confrontations in the parking lot and want to argue about the cost of the icehouse 40 oz. that for some reason goes for 99 cents on the east side, and paying 1.29 is just an insult.
Anyhoo...it was busy. There was a black family in line in front of me...mom,dad and a kid around 11or so. After they finished their purchase, the kid decided he wanted a scratch ticket, mom tried to buy it and haji shooed her on quite rudely, saying nononono!We very busy! Ushering me to the front of the line. She was offended, I was offended, Haji was unphased. I happened to have a two dollar winner from earlier in the day that I traded for two of the one dollar scratch tickets that the kid wanted. I stopped them at the door and gave the kid one of the tickets. I went home and shared my philanthropic moment with Ann and scratched my ticket. It was a three dollar winner! WooHoo! I was a cool guy to the poor little kid and I was up by a dollar, it doesn't get better than that.
But it does.
Jump to saturday...my buddy Joel and I had plans to hang at my house and drink some beers. He called enroute and asked if I had my travelling clothes on, cause he was springing for rocks no salt at Maudies. I couldn't refuse that offer don't you know...and in my excitement over a trip to Maudies, I completely forgot that I was wearing my shirt until we were on the way.
Four rocks no salt later and we are on the way back to my house, with a pit stop at the haji mart for OJ and smokes. It's busy again, crazy busy inside and the (now) usual chaos of crack whore disputes in the parking lot. I have a decent buzz and have completely forgotten that I am wearing the white devil shirt until we are inside and many people of color are looking at it. And at me, and at my friend who is wearing a worldwide terror shirt with an AK-47 screened on the front with the caption "happiness is a warm gun". We make it out of the store alive, and as I step into the lot I see the mom and kid from friday. I approach and inquire about the scratch ticket I had given him, again forgetting about my shirt. Turns out the kid won nine dollars off that ticket...cool! I proclaim.She's looking at me strange, she's confused, here's this skinhead lookin' tattooed guy with a racist T-shirt inquiring about her sons luck with a scratch ticket I gave him the night before because the arab guy at the store showed them no respect. I wish her a good day and head to the car. Her son catches up to me and gives me a dollar and says thanks...also cool.
Can't judge a book by it's cover indeed.