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OK... first entry... this was a story I wrote a loooong time ago... back in 2001 i think... and I just redid it...

The Day I Won the Lotto
So you want to know how a kid, barely out of Elementary school, won five mil? Ok. Picture this; I'm sitting in the front seat of my family’s SUV. I got my sketch book sitting on my lap wit a clean page, ready to be filled with the images of my imagination. There’s a pencil in my right hand and crayons and colored pencils spread around me as much as possible without being forced off the seat and onto the floor. The weather was nice, my creativity was free flowing, and I felt like nothing could go wrong. That was before I realized that Mom had stopped at a gas station to fill up the SUV. Inhaling those fumes when you know its coming is one thing, but when it’s unexpected, boy can it hit you hard. I was getting dizzy from the smell right after my mom had opened her door. My thought process had landed me somewhere along the lines of, “so much for a good day”, but when the smell had been cut off from the inside of the car, I did my best to return to my creations.
About five minutes later, I realized that the rhythmic pumping of the gas had stopped, but when I looked toward the pump out the back driver window, Mom was no where near the car. It took me a few minutes to scan the entirety of the station’s parking lot but eventually I spotted her walking back from the store. At the time I thought her trip to the store was strange. If she decided not to pay at the pump, she would almost always send me in to pay for the gas. Those few times when she decided to leave me in the car, she usually wanted to buy something to eat, use the restroom, or buy a lotto ticket. I always hoped for the latter because it meant she usually bought one for me too.
Minutes later, mom was climbing into the driver’s seat, going through the process of starting the car. I never really paid attention to the particulars of how it was done and just turned my focus back to my drawing with a slight disappointment. I really wanted a scratch-off lotto ticket. The next thing I know, one of my favorite lotto tickets is plopped down onto my sketch book. I looked up at my mom with pure glee on my face. Then, hastily, I reached for the ash tray where she kept her spare change. Shifting through the change, I grabbed a quarter and scratched furiously away at the ticket with the side of the coin. Carefully I picked which clues I would scratch. My scrapings revealed one magnifying glass... then another... next, I uncovered a set of footsteps (not something that would help much)... and then I stopped scratching. I slowly put the quarter down and simply stared at the ticket. The last thing I had uncovered was a third magnifying glass.
I glanced over the rules on the back quickly, already knowing what I had won, but not truly believing it. After a while my mom had noticed this and glanced at me before asking, “Did you win something, Hun?” I lifted the ticket to show her what I had done while explaining what the symbols meant—and the significance of three of that particular symbol. I explained to her, calmly, that the uncovering of three magnifying glasses was monumental. I had won five million dollars. Of course, I was in shock when I said this.
Mom didn’t believe me at first, but after looking over the ticket, she began to come around. I don’t remember much about the ride home, just that mom couldn’t call dad because her cell phone was on the charger. When we did get a hold of him, he was so stunned that he told his boss a family emergency had come up and he came home.
All of that happened about three months ago. My life has changed a lot, but in many ways, has stayed the same. Mom bought a new house with the wrap around porch that she always wanted. I don’t ride the bus anymore. We have a limo that drops me off instead. (The driver reminds me of a character from a book. I can’t remember which one, but he’s a really cool guy.) Horizon Middle school is still my school of choice though. Mom asked me if I wanted to go to a private school and I informed her that those schools were for snobs and jerks. The worst part about having all that money is that I’m not allowed to touch half of it. Mom took one third of the money and put it in the bank for college. She paid off the new house with another third, and the rest goes towards dad’s new toys. He took the money and invested in a business, so now he owns his own motorcycle shop and an extensive ensemble of classic rides.