Last night cousin Ellie phoned and said "We've got to go to Slidell (Louisiana) and buy lottery tickets!" The news is full of talk about the multimillion dollar payoff for someone with a winning ticket.
Mississippi doesn't have the lottery, so if you want tickets, you drive to Slidell, over the Louisiana state line, where there is a lonely little gas station where you cross into Louisiana and can get tickets.
The trip would mean I would use my car, buy the gas and do the driving. I hate driving to Slidell. As the crow flies it wouldn't be so bad, but to get there first I drive to Hattiesburg, then take I-59 south to Slidell--a three hour trip one way, from my house to Slidell.

I've driven that route many times, because it's the first leg in the route to San Antonio where the daughters are. It's bleak swampy scenery, road construction, and hard driving truckers the whole way.(As an aside, Slidell sits on one side of Lake Ponchartrain, and New Orleans on the other. They are connected by a 30 mile long causeway. One dark rainy night I took the wrong turn and wound up on the causeway then in the middle of a bad neighborhood in New Orleans.) I don't drive there anymore. Going to Slidell gives me the heebie jeebies.
So, I guess the lottery will have to go on without me. Some other sucker--uh I mean lucky person--will win it, eh?

SUSIL