Everyone’s done it. It’s as American as a hot apple pies in bar form that fit snugly into cardboard sheaths with little air holes.

You take a hard-earned dollar or two and let it ride. Maybe you play your grandmother’s birthday, perhaps you pull the slots, or you may even have an itch you like to scratch with scratch-off tickets.

Everyone has a different way to get his or her fix, but in the end we all want the same thing. We all want to be a winner for no good reason at all. We may know that we have a better chance of lightning hitting us than hitting the jackpot ourselves. But what if?

What if one of just happens to be luck’s lightning rod and we don’t know it? Every time we forget to stop and buy a lottery ticket on the way home we could be doing ourselves a great disservice. What if we just happen to be the luckiest schmuck on earth and we don’t know it?

It happens. Sometimes divorced 46-year-old ex-convicts from Kentucky win the lottery. David Edwards was living on unemployment and nearing his last check too, when he said a little prayer and bought a Powerball ticket.

At the time Edward’s ex was getting ready to remarry. If he had been any more down on his luck, Edwards would have been the subject of a country music song.

But his luck came around. Edwards was one of the four winners in the multi-state Powerball lottery. Today he has 41 million reasons to smile and he and his fiancee are reportedly shopping for a new Bentley.

Winning the lottery is the McVersion of the American Dream. It cuts out all the hard work involved in the traditional blueprint.

Just give me my success, hot and ready to go in less than three minutes with fries and a coke. Who’s interested in doing the cooking?

So, it’s not hard to see why McDonalds offers several promotions a year designed to momentarily stop us from sucking down our two patties on sesame seed buns with lettuce onion, pickle and special sauce just long enough to peel valuable prize-winning stickers off of our giganto-size fries and our vat-o Cokes.

If we didn’t already seek out the golden arches for their for the delectable dishes and their super sizes, we’ll most certainly be lured to McDonalds for the chance to win vacations, jet skis, shiny new automobiles and, of course, cold hard cash.

Last week we were shocked and appalled to learn that we’d been duped.

McDonald’s Monopoly game had been infiltrated by dirty crooks who were stealing the winning stickers as they came of the press and having their buddies cash in so they could split the profits later.

How could these evil fiends, rob us of our chances at the ultimate in instant gratification?

With their dastardly deeds they most certainly moved ahead of the Hamburglar as Ronald McDonald’s number one enemy.

The whole situation was infuriating. The multinational corporation that loves to see us smile let us down.

I’m so sad that I’m not even sure a happy meal will make me feel better.