For this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt from Linda G. Hill, the challenge is to write a post starting with “psst,” or any other attention-getting noise or word.

“Psst!”

I looked around and saw a shady looking guy standing in the shadows.

“Are you talking to me?” I asked.

He motioned to me to come over to him. Against my better judgment, I moved toward him. I could smell him even before I got close enough to see his face clearly in the dimness.

“What?” I asked.

“Dude, I’m in a bad way,” he said. “Fallen on some hard times, you know. I could use some cash.” He reached a skinny arm out toward me, a small piece of paper between his thumb and forefinger.

“What’s that?” I asked, pointing to the paper he was holding.

“It’s a Powerball ticket, dude. It fell outta some dude’s pocket. It’s for tonight’s drawing. Could be worth a lot of dough,” he said. “It’s got ten picks on it. Cost you twenty at the liquor store. But gimme five bucks and it’s yours.”

I couldn’t remember the last time I played the lottery, but this was too good a deal to pass up. He and I made the exchange, his Powerball ticket for my fiver.

“Good luck, dude,” the guy said as he slinked back into the shadows.

When I got back to my place, I threw my keys and the Powerball ticket on the sidebar in our foyer and greeted my wife, who was fixing dinner in the kitchen. I told her about giving some creepy homeless guy five dollars in exchange for the lottery ticket. “You’re nuts,” she said. “You know he’s just going to use it to get booze or drugs.”

“Yeah, that’s probably true,” I said. “But you never know. We might have a winning Powerball ticket.”

My wife woke me up the next morning, whispering into my ear, “Psst, I just checked the Powerball ticket.”

“And?” I asked.