You bettor, you bet

You don't go driving your car without insurance, you don't get on a plane without getting that little travel insurance policy, and it's an effective method of hedging your bets in blackjack, insurance is.

Insurance is just a form of gambling, anyway.  Sure, you could drive the Family Truckster all around town and hope you don't back into some Smart Car at the mall parking lot because you wanted that sweet parking spot down by Fuddrucker's.  And for sure, you'd want to keep your fingers crossed that you won't hit a) a patch of ice and b) a tree one cold snowy night.  But if you do, you're glad you have insurance!

Life insurance?  You don't need that! Unless you have a family or dependents. If you're a single lighthouse keeper cut off from the world, just leave an envelope with a little cash in it for when you cross over to the other side just beyond your searchlight so that the new guy can arrange to get you a nice one-man bungalow with silver handles.  Mutual of Omaha need not get a nickel of your lighthouse salary.

But...let's say you own a furniture store in Baltimore, MD, home of the current Super Bowl Champion Ravens.  Let's say, for a promotional gimmick, you tell people that they can have every stick of furniture they're buying between Thursday and 3 PM Sunday of Super Bowl week as long as the home team runs back the opening kickoff of whichever half they get to receive one.

108 yards to open the second half!

And then let's say that Jacoby Jones of the Ravens runs that kickoff back in the second half of Sunday's game.  And you're Gary Mullaney, co-owner of Gardiner's Furniture over on Joppa Rd, right by the Dunkin' Donuts where Peggy and I wound up going for a cuppa mocha java the night we met.  And Gardiner's is where we got our living room furniture when we moved into the current crib.  Anyhow, you're Mr Mullaney, and you sold $600,000 worth of beds, lamps, sofas and I don't know what-all else in those three days and it all just became free because Jacoby Jones runs faster than the Plymouth Valiant I once drove around town. 

I worried that Mullaney was going to lose his shirt, but this article says he took out an insurance policy to the tune of $12,000.

Residents of Baynesville, where the store is, have reported hearing very loud sounds of someone saying "WHEW!" these past few days.