Sunny’s Dream

Sunny sat alone in her room daydreaming about all the possible ways she could help her husband retire. Her and Sam had been renting for five years since they married and had two four year old twin boys. She dreamed of owning a house with a white picket fence, a dog and a treehouse for her boys in a spacious backyard. If only this dream could become a reality.

With no experience (for the past 2 years) to help her family this would stay a daydream for Sunny, or so she thought.

Sunny had never won anything in her life thus far. She floated through school, switched jobs frequently before meeting Sam, wasn’t ever particularly good at anything, her life could be defined as mediocre.

Mediocrity didn’t bother her though, unlike her girl friends, she preferred a life with little to no drama. But she wanted more for her family, she wanted more for her two boys. Giving her husband an early retirement and her boys a father that could be home when he wanted was her ultimate goal.

On a gloomy day in February Sunny was walking home from the grocery store, hands full of groceries and legs aching from the long walk. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to drive, or that she was trying to be healthy, it was that her husband Sam needed their car for the day. While stopping for a rest she noticed a side table in front of a house at 222 Elevation St. with a “free” sign on it. Even though her hands were full and legs aching, and no need for a side table, she decided to take it.

Struggling with 4 bags in one hand and a side table in the other, Sunny thought surely someone on the way would help her. She passed two older men in front of their houses, one said hello, the other ignored her. Finally one house away from hers her muscles gave in and she completely dropped everything.

Groceries sprawled across the sidewalk, eggs broken and oozing down her neighbor’s driveway enctrance she set down the side table and cried. Not like a silent cry where you can hear a couple sniffles if you’re close enough. This was a full on, loud, ugly face, I don’t care who sees me kind of cry.

After 20 minutes, and a couple people walking by, she decided to pick up what she had left and try to make it home. As she stood up she noticed a small black notebook next to her neighbor’s trashcan. Sunny decided every side table needed some sort of book in it, so she decided to get the notebook and put it in the top drawer of her new side table.

Sunny then opened her front door and lugged her side table in and groceries she had left. She only had one hour before her twin boys would be home from preschool. She was so tired from the walk and head full of depressing thoughts she forgot to look at the notebook to see if it had anything written in it.

The next morning she remembered the notebook and decided to check it out. Pulling it out from her new (old) side table she opened it and thought it peculiar that it looked so old but had nothing written in it. She turned it over to see if it had anything written on the back and noticed it had some numbers written on the back, six numbers to be exact.

Living a life of mediocrity, Sunny didn’t think these numbers to be anything special or out of the ordinary. Scrolling through her phone that night Sunny was reading the news and saw that the Lotto was at $20,000 and figured she would play. Her husband’s early retirement party playing in her head, she knew this wouldn’t be enough, though it would surely be a head start.

That night before she could play, her neighbor Laura sent her a text message telling her she saw her take her notebook (through her front door camera.) Immediately Sunny’s stomach twisted into a huge knot thinking her neighbor would be mad (and she was also admittedly embarrassed about Laura potentially seeing the ugly crying.) Instead of being angry though, Laura offered her a few more books. Sunny accepted, taking this as a sign she should play the lotto with the numbers from her gracious neighbor’s old notebook. She bought 2 tickets that night.

As Sunny got home and walked inside her home she heard the Lotto numbers playing on the tv (Sam had left on before going to bed) and pulled out the Lotto tickets she just bought. Balancing the books she picked up from her neighbor and the new lotto tickets (with the numbers she carefully copied from the little black notebook) she looked and listened as she got each number on one ticket: 04, 06, 19, 08...except the last 2.

As you would expect for someone leading a life of mediocrity nothing special happened that night. But Sunny became determined and obsessed with her husband’s early retirement daydream, she continued to play those same lotto numbers from that little black notebook every month for the next 2 years. On another gloomy, cold evening of February 2, 2022 she won 2 million dollars.

Some would say it was luck, but Sunny would say and will continue to say it was determination. And she learned a life of mediocrity can turn extraordinary with a little determination and maybe, just maybe, the help of a little black notebook.