I haven’t won a hybrid yet

I mentioned that I’d been given a large cup, yesterday, and that I didn’t win the car, although it won a doughnut. I was given another large cup yesterday afternoon—which didn’t win anything—so, according to my “larger cups win larger prizes” theory, I had two chances at the car, yesterday.

But here’s the thing: after that experience, I’m starting to partially understand how gamblers might feel. For the record, I don’t consider rolling up the rim to be gambling; I’m not buying any more coffees than I would normally, and anything I get from rolling up my rims is just a sweet bonus to the main prize, which is the coffee inside the cup. But, the thing is, when I rolled up the rim on my two large coffees yesterday, there was a part of me that was expecting to win the car.

I’m not stupid. I realize that the chances of winning a car are pretty low, and it’s not likely to happen to me. But when I was rolling up the rims, it’s like part of me was just taking it for granted that I would see that I’d won the car. To the point that I was not just disappointed, when I saw I hadn’t won, but even a little bit surprised.

I find it interesting that, even though I know how this works, there was a part of me that bought into the hype, and made me expect that I’d win something big on my large coffees. However, that being said, I’m not too far gone. When I rolled up the rim on the first one, and saw the word “Win”, I was shocked. (I was so busy thinking about cars that when I rolled it up further, and saw the word “Donut”, I was disappointed again.)

I guess the lesson to take out of all of this is that emotions are complex things.