I can remember the day I turned 18 years old. I had been waiting for this day my entire life! It was the day I was able to buy my very first scratch off lottery ticket.
\nI was on cloud nine. It was my birthday, on a Saturday, and I knew for sure it was a good day. How could I not win my very first scratch off?
\nBefore I was 18 years old, my parents used to buy me everything, and when I say everything, I mean everything.
\n Before walking into my favorite convenience store, I came to a realization that I had to pay for this scratch off ticket all by myself.
\n I asked my dad for advice on how I could win on my very first lottery ticket. He told me that the first step to winning is to actually buy the ticket first.
\nI laughed as I had to get out of the car, and then I realized I was seeing my birthday money leave my wallet. It made me devastated to spend my birthday money, and looking back, it was only one dollar I was spending on this ticket. Why was I even devastated?
\nThis was just my first real experience buying a scratch off ticket and understanding that I\u2019m spending money on something that I might or might not get any money back from.
\nGetting back into the car I had the first step to my dad\u2019s advice already done. I was smiling, giggling and extremely excited to win from the first lottery ticket I had just bought.
\nI was confident I\u2019d win scratching this ticket, which was tic-tac-toe themed.
\nGrowing up tic-tac-toe was my favorite game to play with chalk. I had a connection with the game, and that was a confidence booster for me.
\nThere I am, scratching, smiling, scratching, smiling with two number threes in a row, one more and I win three dollars. I knew I had those three dollars. It was waiting for me. As I\u2019m scratching for the third three to appear, it doesn\u2019t.
\nI took a deep breath out while realizing that I didn\u2019t win. I had waited so many years, for just one win on my actual birthday. How could this be; how could I not win?
\nIt seemed to me that although I didn\u2019t win the three dollars, I tried and that\u2019s just the art to playing the lottery.
\nIt might seem odd that I haven\u2019t bought a ticket in almost three years, but should I really? As I turn 21 later this year, I am even faced with the question of gambling on my family vacation to Lake Charles, La. I think I would actually win every time if luck were not involved. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I can remember the day I turned 18 years old. I had been waiting for this day my entire life! It was the day I… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[186],"class_list":["post-2210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"aioseo_notices":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"authors":[{"term_id":186,"user_id":34,"is_guest":0,"slug":"brenda-riojas","display_name":"Brenda Riojas","avatar_url":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/wp-content\/litespeed\/avatar\/107d2c5d491817a3a8173264fbc55d8a.jpg?ver=1778678165","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2210"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2211,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2210\/revisions\/2211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2210"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=2210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}