Four little things that make me inordinately happy

(1) Winning $2 on a scratch-off lottery ticket
Every once in awhile when I'm in the grocery store and I have a couple of singles in my wallet, I'll buy an instant lottery ticket. I always buy a $2 ticket on the theory that there are twice as many winners on $2 tickets than there are on $1 tickets. I have no evidence to back this up and it's probably not at all true, but I choose to believe it. Anyway, no matter which lottery game I play, most of the time I lose. My 2 dollars goes to someone else. But every so often (once or twice a year), I'll actually have a winner. And that "winner" is invariably in the amount of $2. Which means all I did was get my money back. Yet I feel like I pulled a fast one on the lottery people. I'm a simple man.

(2) Reruns of the Carol Burnett Show
One of the funniest shows in the history of the television. Tim Conway could make me laugh at a funeral. If I come across an old episode of this show, I no longer need the remote because the channel ain't changing for the next 60 minutes.

(3) Kids playing pick-up sports
I don't even care what it is: football, baseball, soccer, whatever. Just seeing kids getting together informally without uniforms, without coaches, and without screaming parents just to play a game for the fun of it tells me that we, as a civilization, are not nearly as bad off as I thought we were.

(4) Dark chocolate in any amount
If dark chocolate does not prove conclusively the existence of a loving God, I don't know what does.