text: I was once known as the luckiest man in West Chester. Everything I touched turned to gold. I had the Midas touch, people would say. Luck just seemed to follow me around I have won every hand of poker I have ever played. Nowadays it's hard to find a place to let me play. It can get quite boring winning all the time anyway. I bought the winning scratcher every time. They soon got sick of me down the lottery headquarters. They even tried to investigate me. They thought I was scamming the system. I have never lost a coin toss. Never even lost an argument I didn't know what bad luck was. It had its drawbacks though. Didn't have many friends, because people would be too envious of me. Jealousy is a strange emotion. People love to see you down. Then hate you when you are up. It also brought me unwarranted attention from a few unsavoury characters. Fellas wanting to cash in on my luck. The luck didn't seem to work in that way. Bad things happened to the people who benefited from my luck. A couple of gangsters got wind of my good fortune and wanted in. One evening when I was getting into my car. I get jumped from behind and the next thing I remember I was being led into a casino by two fairly large, bald, Russian gangsters. To put a bet on a number on the roulette table. If I didn't do it, my wife was getting shot, if I lost me and my wife were getting shot. They hand me 200 thousand dollars. I pick my luckiest of numbers, twenty-one. As I watched the wheel going around. I suddenly found myself doubting my luck. The ball bounced eight times before it came to a rest. My heart began beating out through my chest as the number landed on twelve. I look up at the two Russians and they were celebrating. I look at the wheel again, twenty-one. I feel an enormous weight lift off my chest. I hand the money over to the two Russians. They told me they would be in contact with me for some future fun. They slap me on the back as they went skipping out of the casino. A group of rival gangster were waiting for them outside. As soon as they stepped outside they open fire. Gunning down my two kidnappers in a hail of bullets. Stray bullets hitting the innocent people who just so happen to bet on my number as well. Killing them as they collected their winnings When I think back on it, everyone around me fell on hard times. Everyone around me was miserable, while everything just fell into place for me. No wonder my family hated me. The best thing my luck brought me was my wife Amy. She was the most beautiful women I had ever seen. She had the most angelic face with the most beautiful brown eyes I had ever seen. The one and only time I ever got rear-ended by another car. The woman driving so happened to be my future wife. Things didn't start out too well for her though. Not long after we got married her parents died. Then the miscarriages started happening. Doctors couldn't find a reason for it, just bad luck they said. Then came the lottery win. 6.5 million dollars. I thought this was what my wife needed to lift her from this terrible depression she found herself in. We decided to go on a holiday to France. Ever since she was a child she longed to see Paris. That dream soon turned into a nightmare. We decided to go for a romantic meal in the city and after we went for a stroll. As we walk down Rue de la Paix, she told me things were starting to feel fussy in her head and then she just collapsed. The doctors told me it was cancer. It had already progressed aggressively and she had a week at best. Both our families had flown in. We had decided to let her spend her dying days in Paris, just make her comfortable and let her rest. Since the families paid their own way over I decided to treat them with some of my lottery winnings. I booked them into the fanciest hotels and treated them to dinner in the finest restaurants. I even booked out the whole first class cabin for their journey home. I had to stay behind to finalise some issues with the hospital. When I got back to my hotel room I flicked on the news to a breaking news report about a plane crash that only killed all the first class passengers of the plane. As the news of the plane crash was sinking in, I get a message to my phone. My wife's life insurance policy was just credited to my account. 2.3 million dollars. Even when I'm down, I'm up. The story of my life.