Dear Kid,

I had a great day yesterday.

I renewed my driver’s license, and against all expectations it took only 12 minutes from the time I walked in the door until I had a new license (terrible photo—duh).

I went to the post office and in less than 2 minutes I was done. Very different than earlier in the week when half the population of Cincinnati was partying with the USPS.

And that’s how the entire day went.

So I thought about buying a lottery ticket.

I dug up some (not very surprising) facts about the lottery.

• You are more likely to be struck by lightning 5,000 times than win the lottery
• You are 146 times more likely to die in a fireworks accident
• You are 8,000 times more likely to be murdered

Here’s what I find particularly interesting. I’m more likely to be struck by lightning 5,000 (count ‘em, 5K with a comma) times than to win the lottery but only 146 times more likely to die in a fireworks accident.

Is there a fireworks-injury epidemic I don’t know about? How is it even possible that that many people get killed by fireworks? Are people eating fireworks or something?

(Does quick research.) According to MFTI (My Friend The Internet), there are four deaths per year from fireworks, and the most times anyone has ever been hit by lightning is 7 or 8.

Which, as far as I can tell, means I don’t have to worry about death from fireworks, overly fried hair from multiple lightning strikes, or winning the lottery.

Guess it was a good thing I didn’t buy a ticket. But I digress.

Back to yesterday.

Later in the day, I went to the gym. There was virtually no one at the gym, so I was able to use the machinery I wanted without waiting. And my FitRadio was playing great music with no load-time issues.

By working out I burned 225 calories. I celebrated by eating 7 servings of salmon and an entire cheesecake.

See what I mean about a great day?

Love, Mom