By Braydon Benedum ’18, Contributor

I hate feet, but I love playing scratch-off lottery tickets. To most people, these two things may seem totally unrelated, but to me there is a connection between them that I know all too well. This is the story of how I started my own underground massage company, paid for only in lottery tickets, to fund my premature and probably illegal gambling habits.

            My grandma waited tables up until the day she died. She spent long hours on her feet, while she shuffled to bring people their Big Boy and onion rings with extra tartar sauce. Now I love my Grandma more than anything, but over the years her feet formed into some of the most disgusting hunks of meat I’ve ever laid my eyes on. Her toes overlapped and pointed in all the wrong directions, she had calluses that suggested she was into barefoot mountain hiking, and the odor had no problem clearing a room. There wasn’t anything in the world she wanted more than to win it big in the lottery and finally put her feet to rest. I spent years watching her scratch off those little pieces of paper and celebrate a little when she broke even. I never saw her win much, but I knew one day she was going to win it big, and I wanted in. The only problem was I obviously couldn’t buy them myself, so I had to make other arrangements.

            It started off with me doing small things around her apartment in exchange for scratch-offs. Other times I would walk her dog or do things in her garden, but it wasn’t long before these small jobs ran out. But I just knew the next ticket that I would scratch would be the one that was the big winner. As that old rusty good luck nickel we would always use revealed I’d lost yet again, I had to find other ways to get more lottery tickets. When I asked my grandma if there was anything I could do, she proceeded to take off her pale brown socks and muttered, “Brady why don’t you come massage these old feet for your grandma.” As I stared into those wrinkly, discolored flesh patties I remember thinking there was no way I was going to do that. The right thing to do was to massage her feet for nothing, because she was my grandma and she worked hard, but I wasn’t going anywhere near those without getting something in return. That’s when I came up with my rate: one dollar in lottery tickets for every five minutes worth of massage.

            For months, I would hold my breath and grit my teeth as I figured out what techniques she liked best and what amount of thumb pressure was just enough. I would try not to gag as the lotion would run in between the cracks in her skin and then trickle back onto my hands. I never won anything, but soon enough it became our thing and it made her happy, so it made me happy. I learned that if you wanted something bad enough you had to work for it, even if it was something you didn’t want to do. I am proud to say my lottery ticket addiction has ceased, but I don’t regret it. Even though it may seem small to some people it was actually one of the biggest lessons I needed to learn. Even though I still can’t wash my hands enough, I’m glad it happened.