When I arrived at the office this morning, there was a commotion near the tea room. I went over to investigate what's going on. I found Rudy, our office boy, seated at his desk and engaged in an animated conversation while some of the clerks gathered around him to listen. On his desk was a photocopy of a portion of today's papers—the page showing the results of yesterday's draws for 4-digit lottery numbers. Of the numbers found on that page, I noticed two of them were highlighted with the yellow marker—6120 (first prize) and 6012 (consolation prize). Also found on his desk were 2 tickets bearing 2 different 4-digit numbers. And of course those numbers on the tickets did not match any of those in the results.
Well, there is no harm for a little bit of entertainment first thing in the morning. It's good to start off the day mingling around with my staff, and I always find that I can learn a lot about people in general—and Rudy is no exception.
And so, although Rudy had probably repeated his story several times to his colleagues by the time I asked him the question, he gladly obliged to start over again. In fact, I could see that the poor fellow worked himself up quite a bit by then.
A couple of nights ago, apparently Rudy had a dream (I'm laughing out loud again right now as I'm typing this; Oh! I hate myself for this!). In his dream he saw the tyres of his car (yes, he has a Kelisa now) were torn up into pieces. Not punctured! He said "koyak", meaning torn up. Don't ask me how, because I was too busy laughing and forgot to ask him how it happened. Although the tyres were damaged, the car itself was still intact.
He woke up and remembered his dream; and reckoned that there must be a significance to that dream. He then consulted a friend who tried to play the role of Nujum Pak Belalang to figure out the dream. According to the Tok Nujum, Rudy should buy 4-digit lotteries based on the numbers found on the tyres of his car. Now, to be quite honest, I didn't even know that there are 4-digit numbers on tyres, but well, evidently Rudy found those numbers and duly bought 2 tickets. He then waited eagerly for the results.
This morning when he checked the papers, he found that the numbers he bought were not even close! Instead, he said if he had only jumbled up his car registration numbers, he would have won the first prize and consolation prize. I told Rudy that that might be true, but how would he be able to jumble up the 4 digits of his car registration numbers when he could only afford to buy 2 tickets? For the benefit of those who're not mathematically inclined, in order to buy all the possible combinations of 4 (different) digits, one would have to buy 24 tickets (combinations)!
So if one can draw a conclusion from Rudy's dream, then the bet is in the opposite direction. If the tyres are damaged, then buy the car numbers; and if the car is damaged, then buy the numbers on the tyres.
In the end, I decided to take up the role of Nujum Pak Belalang myself! I told Rudy the next time he dreams of his car again, he should damage his car so that the numbers on his tyres will emerge in the lottery results. I just hope that Rudy won't get mixed up between his dreams and reality; and I hope he realises that I was only joking.
Anyway, have you noticed that, generally speaking, the vast majority of those who buy lottery tickets are those from the lower income population? I'm not saying that those who earn higher incomes don't buy lotteries. They do, and probably more in terms of Ringgit and Sen. But if someone would actually conduct a survey, I'm sure he'd find that in terms of people, more of the lower income group buy lottery tickets.
According to a psychologist friend of mine, these people are buying "hope". They know it's a very long shot, yet they will still try their luck. For there are not many other avenues for them to try their luck such as venturing into businesses and investing in the stock market etc.
However, I sometimes have weird dreams too. And so far based on past records, I have always gained from buying lottery tickets. It might not happen immediately though; sometimes I had to buy for several weeks or even months! But in the end, I would always gain something.
Last week, I had one of those dreams, and so I have been buying some tickets myself! Let's see how long I can keep it up this time!
4 comments:
I tho' they have the 24 Permutations option like ibox or mbox?
By jove! I did not know that, delurk! After all, I hardly buy lottery tickets - only when I have interesting dreams! And the funny thing is that Rudy did not know that too! But this morning, I asked another one of my staff and she's confirmed that there're those options when buying tickets. Apparently, Sabah 88 has recently introduced those options too. Amazing... they never run out of ideas when it comes to gambling!
Corny,
You probably did not pass down your knowledge on treasure hunt to your staff.
He said the tyres were 'koyak'. What does 'koyak' tell you? An anagram indicator. If he was to have your knowledge on treasure hunt, he would have known that it was meant to jumble up the numbers.
There you have it - it doesn't take pak belang to tell how to strike it rich, but simple 'treasure' hunt knowledge will do.
No, Peter, I'm afraid I was not in time to tell Rudy about anagrams. But yesterday, after the story was out, I did say to Joanna that "koyak" is an anagram indicator. However, even that knowledge couldn't have helped Rudy, for he would have had to reconfigure the numbers found on the tyres, and not those of his car registration. We had a good laugh about the anagram though.
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