A Question of Loss (I.P.)

A QUESTION OF LOSS

In the words of the English entertainer Max Bygraves, singer of “Toothbrush” and “Gilly Gilly Ossenfeffer Katzenellen Bogen by the Sea”, ‘I wanna tell you a story’. Before I do so, and in the words of… well in the words of me as it so happens, ‘I wanna ask you a question’.

The question in question is simply this: can a person truly be said to have lost something if they never actually had it in the first place?

‘Do what?’ I possibly hear you cry. Let me elucidate, or at least let me give you an example of what I’m alluding to.

I recently watched an edition of the Channel 4 game show “Deal or No Deal?”; you know the one I’m sure. The contestant chooses at random one of twenty-two sealed boxes, each fairly large and very red, and each containing (nominally as opposed to literally) one of twenty-two sums of money beginning at one penny and rising, via (amongst others) fifty pence, seven hundred & fifty pounds, twenty grand and seventy-five grand, way up to the princely sum of…wait for it…two hundred and fifty thousand pounds! The game progresses as round by round the player selects boxes that he or she hopes contain the lowest amounts currently available. At prescribed points in the proceedings the anonymous and adversarial “Banker” offers to buy the box off the contestant, hence the title “Deal or No Deal?”.

In the particular game to which I refer the male contender had steadfastly refused all offers made and had arrived at the finale of the game; just two boxes remained, his and one other. One definitely contained fifty ‘k’, the other the much sought after two hundred & fifty thousand smackers; the Banker’s offer to end the game there and then was an enviable one hundred & sixty thousand pounds.

The contestant said…..’no deal’…

He was asked if he’d like to swap the two boxes over…

The contestant said…..’no deal’…

The host, the either much liked or, depending on your point of view, much maligned, Noel Edmonds, opened the box…

The audience gasped…

The box contained……….fifty thousand pounds! He’d lost a whopping one hundred & ten grand……or had he?

I return to my original question: can a person truly be said to have lost something if they never actually had it in the first place? Let me give you another totally different example, one that deals not with lost lolly but with lost love.

While at secondary school, many years ago, a very good friend of mine fell head over heels in love with no lesser being than the most beautiful girl in the whole school; witty, intelligent and drop dead gorgeous. It transpired that my friend, in a failed attempt to learn to ski, ended up in plaster and on crutches. Never one to limit himself in the unrequited love department and having previously conceded the futility of his other romantic quest, he had also become silently enamoured of another girl in the school, one from the year below his own. Unbeknownst to this second girl he had adorned his plaster cast (yes, that’s right, the “Billy-no-mates” that he was he actually decorated his own plaster cast) with, amongst other things, felt tipped pronouncements of his love through such poetic musings as ‘CB for EP’ and ‘I love CB’.

Tragically the original and far superior recipient of his unspoken devotion came to sit beside him one day during a P.E. lesson. The love of his life, the sun in his sky, the apple of his eye, resplendent in her P.E. shorts, her long legs stretched out before her, was sat right there beside him, enquiring after his health, talking to him about his accident & injury, sharing the time of day with him….and reading the words he’d written on his cast.

To this day my friend is convinced she had looked profoundly disappointed to find he loved another… that he’d blown his chance to catch the girl of his dreams… that he’d lost her. All these years later he still bemoans that loss. I ask you once again: can a person truly be said to have lost something if they never actually had it in the first place?

I wanted to ask you a question and I’ve done so, several times in fact. Now it’s time to tell you that story, albeit related to my question, and as such it falls squarely in the court of the first example, although on a much grander yet more depressing scale.

Duncan Harris lived in a three bedroom semi-detached house, cheaply converted into four bed-sits, his being what was originally the front reception room. The rear reception / conservatory, as well as the kitchen and the downstairs (and only) bathroom, were shared by all of the four to five tenants living in the house.

His room contained a double bed, a chip board & Formica desk brought with him from his parents’ house, two wardrobes, a dressing table, an armchair and a small, drop-leaf table which served also as his ironing board. The iron shaped burn on the tablecloth was testament to his lack of ironing ability; the tins of chilli con carne, bolognaise and sundry cold meats in the additional cupboard behind the armchair spoke of both his inability in the catering department as well as his co-tenants’ occasional lack of integrity when it came to ownership of food stored in the communal kitchen.

The house itself had seen better days; both the interior and exterior décor were tired at best. Indeed when Duncan moved in the wallpaper in his room had been so shoddy he had painted over it in light grey emulsion, even covering a damp and peeling patch above the window in duct tape prior to the paint. Ah, duct tape: a DIY material surely sent from heaven.

Outside the house both the front and back gardens, the former allegedly given over to flower beds and the latter to grass, were a sea of three foot high thistles. Inside the carpets were worn and none to clean, the bathroom was grim & windowless and the kitchen was dark & dingy and prone to cockroaches. After much trial & error Duncan had concluded the most effective way to get rid of these annoying invaders was to don a pair of rubber gloves (black & reassuringly masculine) and then spend a happy evening crushing the little blighters… one by one by one by one…

It was in this luxurious locale that Duncan awoke late one afternoon, still dressed, following a night out during which he’d lost all his money to the cash register of the local pub before losing the majority of the lager he’d consumed to the already unhygienic floor of the gents’ lavatory. This litany of losses was completed by that of his dignity when he slipped both on and into a puddle of vomit strictly of his own making.

As he lay in bed, miserable as sin, nursing a thumping headache and feeling as sick as the proverbial parrot, he slowly remembered tonight was lottery night and he had yet to buy his ticket for the current four weeks. Jumping out of bed he was immediately reminded of something else; he was way too hungover to be jumping anywhere. Fortunately for his housemates, this time Duncan actually made it to the toilet bowl before throwing up the remainder of last night’s beer.

Several hours later Duncan awoke for the second time that afternoon, although he could not recall returning to his bed. The feeling of nausea had receded somewhat but his headache remained, as did the urgent need to purchase his lottery ticket. Devoid of cash he stashed his debit card and his National Lottery Fast Pay card in his jeans pocket and headed gingerly for the convenience store on the corner, firstly to withdraw some money and secondly to immediately spend it on his chance to win the rollover jackpot of ELEVEN MILLION POUNDS!!!

Ten minutes later (the fact it should only have taken two was testament to the continued power of his hangover) Duncan found himself standing in front of, and occasionally clinging onto, the shop’s cash machine. His card was in the slot, unfortunately his PIN number was nowhere in his head, for the life of him he could not recall it, not any of it, to mind. The fug of forgetfulness brought on by too much alcohol was absolute. He’d already tried two sets of digits which he’d vaguely thought might be right, only to have the wretched machine tell him they were clearly wrong; he daren’t risk losing his card to the machine’s mechanical innards by entering an incorrect number for a third time. Dejectedly retrieving his plastic he headed home, reassuring himself as he did so that his numbers would more than likely not come up. Even if they did, he asserted to himself, it would most likely be just a tenner for matching three balls.

As you may have guessed already, Duncan’s numbers, those same numbers he’d been using for every draw since the lottery began, indeed came up that night. Not three, not four, not five, not even five and the bonus ball, but all six, all eleven million pounds worth. Duncan was understandably distraught. He’d never actually had the money, therefore he’d never truly lost it, yet he felt, and will probably continue to feel for the rest of his life, the profound and mind blowing loss of it all the same.

After the draw he sat for hours staring at the numbers printed on the Fast Pay card. Through the darkness of midnight, into the creeping light of early morning, on into the mellow dusk of evening, he stayed locked in his room, swinging constantly between angry ranting, dejected tears and near hysterical laughter. For days he only came out from behind his door to use the bathroom, not eating, not sleeping, looking again and again at the figures on the card.

I would imagine that most of us choose our lottery entries based on a combination of lucky numbers, birth dates, anniversaries, house numbers and ages. I once chose mine based purely on a verse central to J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings”: 3 (rings for the Elven-kings under the sky); 7 (for the Dwarf lords in their halls of stone); 9 (for mortal men doomed to die); 1 (for the dark lord on his dark throne); 18 (nine doubled and not part of the verse); and 27 (you guessed it, nine trebled).

Duncan had never really believed in lucky numbers; he believed in them even less now numbers had proved so damnably unlucky. How then had he chosen them? 2 and 8, the first two, were his little private joke; he’d been in a right “two and eight”, i.e. state, when he’d been trying to come up with them. The third, 28, was merely the first two combined, while the forth, 13, he’d picked purely because many people would consider it unlucky. The final two numbers, 22 and 47, he considered to be a stroke of genius. 22 and 47, 2.2.4.7, a series of numbers that had provided him with money on many an occasion in the past. 2.2.4.7, once combined with 2, 8, 13, and 28 would be his key to future riches. 2.2.4.7, a.k.a. his PIN number!

In the words of the American entertainer, Marshall Mathers III, singer of “Stan” and “The Real Slim Shady”…...‘damn’.

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.copyright DM Pamment 7th january 2012