Lottery winner

My straw was drawn in the lottery for the right to purchase National League Division Series tickets for the Cincinnati Reds. At least three other family members put their names in the running, but they all came up empty-handed. It's not anything--I won the opportunity to spend money--but regardless, I take some pleasure from being randomly selected.

Buying the tickets won't imperil the Reds' chances of making the postseason before mathematically securing their berth, but doing this gives me brief pause because in 1999 I succeeded at buying tickets for the NLDS. Everything looked good for qualifying for the play-offs. Then the team melted down, was forced to play a tiebreaker game, and failed to get there. *sad trombone*

It has been a little bit of a curse as I coordinated how many tickets I will need to pony up for in the morning. (Look, three prepositions in a row!) One of my brothers really wanted me to buy a the maximum, which is a fairly hefty outlay of money that I wasn't comfortable doing, even if I'd eventually be reimbursed. I also don't want to deal with the hassle of scalping the extras, especially in a short window. Plus, it feels like that's the greedy way to go, particularly since I didn't do anything but drop my name in the virtual hopper.

So, if all goes well, I'll get to witness some postseason baseball in person for the first time. Finally.