The Jackpot has been carried forward. Goddamn!
My numbers, they didn't come up and now I'm committed, what if the lotto was won with my numbers, or they came up and I didn't play them? You hear of it all the time....
I'm damned. At least until somebody wins.
I told the customers, "The Coronation is taking place at the Superette, just before I don't go to work..."
And now I've had to defer it. It's not a big deal, really, a surprising number of villagers didn't turn out for my much-anticipated Coronation on Saturday. And I'd so prepared:
"Thank you, loyal subjects and humble peasants that have come for my coronation...your virtues and good judgement are not unrecognized, and will be amply rewarded..."
As I kneel before the lotto-ticket-verifying-machine...
It's a bit much for the Superette, and they're losing patience with me.
Meanwhile, at work we're laying all sorts of plans for my impending Kingship. Chris, by means of sportive competition, has declared himself "Duke of Balfour", and I can sort of see it, after the Duke Character in Huck Finn.
I use the extra time wisely, I have surreptitiously applied the King's touch to the entire town of Balfour and cured it - entirely - of Scrofula.
And I educate the staff. "Teach the girl to curtsy!" I tell Ken when the Kitchen help fail to acknowledge my presence. He apologizes for me, then tells me later that he could teach them, he watched an entire episode of "Game of Thrones" dedicated to the subject...
I forgive them. They are but Scullery maids, educated by none-other than Quasimodo.
Ken doesn't get this, and so I explain. As I must whenever the pop-culture reference don't involve spaceships and easy alien-girls.
I devise names for the villagers.....so-and-so keeps chickens, and so I call them "The Poulterer", and so and so fishes, and becomes "The Fishmonger", and as King I feel delighted to be so in tune with my humble, adoring Villagers.
There is, of course, a back-up plan. Just in case I don't win the full 70 Million (which a quick Google search suggests I may not have...). The plan for subsidiary prizes:
The Marquis De Balfour, with a list of sexual deviances that I intend to popularize (De Sade didn't INVENT Sadism, he merely POPULARIZED his vices...), so that every working girl will know the trick when a client asks for a "Lord Balfour" or, quite simply, a "Balfour".
But here I'm a little confounded. And I'm needing a little inspiration - or a lot, and I'm sure it will come. Meanwhile I'll content myself with asking every reasonably attractive girl for a "Lord Balfour" and see what comes up...