Lost & Found

If there's one thing most people wouldn't know about driving a school bus, it's that there's only ONE seatbelt and it's mine. School buses don't have seatbelts for safety reasons. I mean, it seems counterintuitive but think about it; if you have to get 50+ kids out of a bus through a window or other non-door emergency exit; it's a LOT harder when you have to do fight 50+ seatbelts. Have you SEEN The Fugitive?

Now, BECAUSE there are no seatbelts, you're almost constantly yelling at the kids, reminding them to sit down, face forward, and get out of the aisles. It's pretty exhausting. That's what makes it worse when you have to then clean up behind them after spending a good chunk of the morning yelling at them. Talk about adding insult to injury.

On a daily basis I recover everything from money (change mostly) to writing utensils, candy wrappers, articles of clothing, loose papers, and, notebooks. The items that are worth salvaging wind up on my dashboard for them to recover. Most winter hats, gloves and folders are missed and therefore quickly claimed but there was a black notebook that stayed on my dashboard for weeks.

This wasn't just a run of the mill spiral or composition notebook. This was more of a journal; a nice Moleskin; the kind I bought for friends as gifts. From the outside, without opening it, you could tell it was practically new. It wasn't scratched, dirty or otherwise worn. I opened it up to see if there was a name inside. There wasn't. Just a bunch of numbers in 3, 4, and 6 digit groupings like some sort of weird Sudoku that was already filled in.

Since there was no name, on the afternoon ride home before we took off from the school, I held the book up to the kids and asked them if it belonged to any of them. Lots of heads shook no and there were no takers. I put the notebook back on the dash and decided to give it a few more days before turning it into the office.

That night, as I was nodding off to sleep, I heard the lottery numbers announced for the daily 4.

"Zero-Three-Two-Seven."

It was the very first number on the second page with the 4 digit numbers in the notebook. I only remembered because 03/27 is my best friend's birthday and laughed when seeing it. I literally thought to myself, "Racheal's birthday is coming up; I should play that number." So to hear that it fell STRAIGHT was enough to wake me up out of my sleep. The three digit number was One-One-Nine. For the life of me, I couldn't remember the first number on the three digit page and I couldn't sleep a wink because of it.

The next morning, I was half an hour early to work. I FLEW through my bus' pre-trip inspection with my heart racing. I couldn't WAIT to get to that notebook. I could have raced to my bus and gone straight to the notebook but it was like I KNEW there was something special about the book and didn't want to give it away by acting any different than I normally would.

With plenty of time to spare after finishing my pre-trip, I drove to the nearest gas station and parked near the dumpsters where there was plenty of outside light so I could see the book without turning on the lights inside the bus. My heart was still racing as if I knew the treasure that was sitting on my dashboard. I skipped the first page with the 3 digit numbers to verify 0-3-2-7. It was spot on.

Even though my palms were sweating, my thumb was too dry to flip the page back to the three digit numbers so I fanned the cover to push the page. Before the pages could touch each other, I saw the 9, then two ones backwards... ONE ONE NINE.

On what planet, in what universe is it possible for two numbers to fall ON THE SAME DAY by way of a magical notebook on my bus? I slowly and calmly put the notebook into my bookbag, put the bag on my back and pulled the straps slowly to adhere it to my back.

I walked into the gas station and grabbed a bottle of water and asked for a pack of Marlboro Red 100s in a box. I don't smoke, but felt like people who play the lottery do, which made me feel better about asking for a printout of last night's numbers. I was so nervous grabbing the paper from the attendant that I almost forgot my change and cigarettes. There had been a Mega Millions drawing the night before and I wanted to see if the six digit numbers matched like the three and four digits had.

I walked back to my bus with my head on a swivel, a gut feeling telling me that my life was about to change. I put the cigarettes in my pocket, the water in the cup holder and the printout on the dashboard. After loosening the straps on my bookbag, I shimmied it off letting it rest on my seat. I took out the notebook and picked up the printout placing it to the right of the first column of numbers which covered the second. One by one, my eyes darted between the printout and the paper.

Seven ----- Seven

Fourteen ----Fourteen

Eleven----Eleven

Four----Four

Thirty Three----Thirty Three

Sixty One----Sixty One

Every single digit was right. Even the powerball.

I dug into my pocket for my phone and took a picture of the pages even though I'd already memorized the digits underneath the previous day's winning numbers. I knew there wouldn't be another Mega Millions drawing until Friday so I skipped buying that ticket and bought two Midday and Evening $5 tickets for both the three and four digit drawings for that night. All morning, I couldn't concentrate, the day dripped by more slowly than usual and it took forever for the Midday drawing to happen.

As I suspected, the Midday drawings were totally different numbers and didn't match up to ANY of the numbers anywhere in the book. This only made me more antsy for the evening's drawing.

For the first time in my life, I watched a lottery drawing happen live. My book's numbers were Four Three Eight and Nine Six Two One. Imagine my surprise to see 6-2-7 and 5-0-5-7. I wanted to punch my TV.

It was dumb, thinking that a book, a random, book that I found on my bus was somehow magical like the Sports Almanac from Back to the Future. Dumb. Just dumb.

That night, I couldn't sleep. Something was telling me not to give up. I opened my phone and looked at the numbers. What I saw nearly pushed me out of my bed.

The numbers from that night were there alright, just not where I thought they were supposed to be. I was reading the numbers left to right instead of row by row.

There were 15 rows filled out on each page. The three digit page had six sets of numbers neatly written on each row. The four digit page had five sets of numbers and the six digit page had 3. The numbers on the second LINE not COLUMN were the right ones. I was determined to try again the next day.

Less than 24 hours later, I was $27,500 richer. It was more money than I'd ever had at one time in my life. More money than I earned before overtime driving buses. Five Daily Three tickets that were played straight cashed out for $500 EACH. Five Daily Four tickets played straight were five THOUSAND each.

The next day, I told my Mom what number to play and bought a few tickets myself. I was doing it to continue to test my theory but what I was really waiting for was Friday. The Mega Millions jackpot was up to $187 Million dollars and the anticipation all but gave me a heart attack.

Friday night, I treated myself to a very nice dinner after work, a surf and turf meal with a bottle of wine I couldn't pronounce and a tip that was as much as the meal at a place I never thought I'd ever be able to afford. The mega millions ticket was sitting underneath my TV in my bedroom. I stayed at the restaurant slowly sipping my wine and refreshing the lottery page until the results showed up.

The wine already had me feeling tipsy but seeing my numbers traipse across my tiny screen made me even more lightheaded. Even if I had to split my winnings, I was a millionaire and would never have to drive a bus again.