My dad is not a habitual lottery player. But he'll buy a ticket or two from time to time when the pot gets big. So when the MegaMillions jackpot hit $252 million last weekend he rode up from the house in New Canaan to the Vista Market in South Salem, N.Y., and bought a couple of $1 tickets.

On Wednesday, when dad checked his numbers against the Tuesday night draw, one ticket came up as a $2 winner, so he figured, good, he’d come out even. Then he realized the numbers on another of the tickets were really lining up—four out of five numbers plus the Mega Ball matched. It was a $10,000 win.

So, I wondered when I heard the news over dinner with the parents Thursday, what was dad going to do with the prize? “Pay some bills, I guess,” he said. But mom said that was not the whole story.

Mom had had a notable birthday (I'm not permitted to say which one) at the end of July. She asked dad not to make a big deal out of it, which he translated into a nice dinner for two at Bonne Nuit and a bauble from Mitchells of Westport. Dad had also given her a set of matching earrings. But despite the zero at the end of her celebrated age, mom reminded him that they'd promised to tighten their belts in light of the economy, and she made him take back the dangly pair.

When they met in the kitchen at the end of the day on Wednesday, they exchanged the usual information about their back-and-forths from the office. Mom figured the catching up had been thorough. But dad stopped her in her tracks.

“You didn’t ask me how my day was,” he prodded.

“Ok, how was it?” she said.

“I won the lottery,” he said, and opened his hand to reveal the earrings he’d gone back for.