Come To A Crossroads
I’m fixing to come to a crossroads.
About eight weeks ago I began relating the desperate events leading up to recovering a trashed 40 million dollar winning lotto ticket that was due to expire about seven hours after I discovered by accident that it was indeed a winner, and the trials and tribulations I went through to cash the thing in.
It all began when my Cousin Elroy clandestinely departed Ocmulgee County due to some pecuniary problems he was experiencing at the time, as well as some complicated romantic entanglements, which I have chosen not to relate.
As you might recall, a few weeks after he had disappeared, I received a written correspondence from him informing me that he was holed up at the State Park Motel down in Gulf Shores, and that he was employed as a chef at the Waffle House, right there where Hwy. 59 reached a dead end at Beach Boulevard. I knew the spot well.
It was a great relief to discover from the letter that my favorite cousin was alive and well, down on the Redneck Riviera. So at his invitation, after I tied up some loose ends, I took off down there to make sure he was all right.
You might remember that on the morning after I had checked into the motel with him, I had cleaned out my briefcase, and along with a few other documents, I had thrown away an old lotto ticket I had purchased three months earlier. After which I went down to the Waffle House, and while Elroy was serving me some hot grits I had picked up a day-old Atlanta Journal Constitution, and discovered to my horror that the discarded ticket was a winner, but that due to the Lotto’s 90 day rule, it would expire at 5:00 p.m. that day.
That’s when the desperate dumpster-diving, heart-stopping plane ride, panicked dash through the Atlanta Airport and the final hair-raising episode of the journey took place, which culminated in beating the 5:00 o’clock deadline by mere seconds and cashing in my ticket that netted me $17 million after all the taxes, and at which time I stated I was fixing to get me some Rich Revenge.
This is what brings us to the crossroads.
I began writing this column in February of 2005, and with the exception of one three-month sabbatical have written it every week since then. That comes to approximately 470 weeks during which I have written about “this and that.” This and that being a mix of southern humor, current events, an occasional political jab and a lot about nothing and a little about everything.
Now we are back to the crossroads, and I am not prepared to make the decision on which way to turn all by myself.
The way I see it there are three directions to take from the crossroads: The first is to continue the story of Rich Revenge, the second is to go back to writing about “this and that,” and the third is to find another job.
If I have to make the decision on my own I am afraid I would be traveling blindly, so I am appealing to you, the reader and my friends to give me some guidance.
You can email me (tmdunagan@aol.com), you can email my boss lady (editor@themonticellonews.com), call the paper at 706-468-6511, or even stop by the newspaper office. If you are reading this on line, you can simply scroll to the bottom of the page and click on Submit Your Opinion.
I’m fixing to leave it up to y’all.