The Raffle Ticket

Is it just me or have kids become obsessed with gambling? Or is it just my kids? Let me explain. Whenever we go to the diner, my son and daughter beg me to shove 50 quarters into "the claw" and inevitably, we never win anything. You can watch that metal thing swaying in the lucite box with tons of stuffed animals crammed inside just there for the taking and no matter what my kids do, they never win.

Another thing we never win - raffles. I must have spent hundreds of dollars on raffle tickets over the years and no matter how you slice it, I've never won a single prize. A few weeks ago, my kids even had me spend 20 bucks on raffles for games they already have and they were stupefied to discover they had lost...again.

But here's the icing on the cake. I don't mind if I'm the one buying the raffle tickets or wasting my hard earned quarters on the claw, I draw the line when my kids have been given money to spend at the Valentine boutique and they proceed to hand over $10 to some woman selling raffles and she willingly takes the cash from them without another adult present.

I mean, I know I'm an idiot if I buy a raffle ticket that'll get me no prize, but is selling raffles to little kids even legal? I don't think so and if it is, it should be outlawed. When my daughter inevitably lost the money in the raffle drawing she came home that day in tears and frankly, I was steamed. I still haven't figured out who I should air my grievances too (most likely the PTA president) but either way, I'm cutting out the raffle habit pronto. Maybe then we can have extra cash for the monster gumball machine or some month old skittles that they peddle from the machine at the movie theater.