Shirley Jackson's 1948 "The Lottery" Except It's All Adam Sandler
A village of Adam Sandler's going absolutely hog wild on each other
The morning of
June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green. The people of the village, all Adam Sandler characters, began to gather in the square, between the post office and the bank. In some towns, there were so many Adam Sandlers that the lottery took two days and had to be started on June 26th, but in this village, where there were only three hundred Adam Sandler characters, the whole lottery took only about two hours. It could begin at ten o’clock in the morning and still be through in time to allow the Sandlers to get back to their large expensive Mr. Deeds mansion for top golf and fancy hors-doeuvres.
Adam Sandler assembled first, of course, followed by the children from Billy Maddison. School was recently over for the summer, and the feeling of liberty sat uneasily among them. They tended to gather together quietly for a while before they broke into boisterous play, talking of the classroom Adam Sandler ripped thru in a week and the teacher he was boinking because of it. Red headed bully from Billy Maddison, also known as O’Doyle had already stuffed his pockets full of golf balls, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest golf balls. “O’ Doyle” eventually made a great pile of golf balls in one corner of the square to protect it from the other children, smaller versions of Adam Sandler like when his head was superimposed on a baby Sandler in Funny People.
Soon the Sandlers began to gather, surveying their Sandler children, speaking of the Oscar they lost, and the next Grown Ups installment. They stood together, away from the pile of golf balls in the corner, and their jokes were all just the indiscernible voice from Hubie Halloween. The women, just Adam Sandler in a wig, came shortly after their menfolk. They greeted one another and exchanged bits of gossip as they went to join their husbands call that Jack & Jill. Soon the women Sandlers, standing by their husband Sandlers, began to call to their children Sandlers. O’Doyle ducked under his mother’s grasping hand and ran, laughing, back to the pile of golf balls like the little shit that he is.
The lottery was conducted—as were the bar mitzfah’s, the teen-age club, the late return to parenting Andy Samberg in That’s my Boy—by Adam Sandler, who had time and energy to devote to civic activities now that he had the Click remote. He was a round-faced, nine time kids choice awards winner who sang songs at weddings that were sometimes off tone considering his recent breakup with Linda. When he arrived in the square, carrying the Scuba Steve themed box, there was a murmur of conversation among the villagers, and he waved and called, “it’s nudey magazine day, folks.” The villagers kept their distance, leaving a space between themselves and the Scuba Steve themed box, when Mr. Sandler said, “Some of you Longfellow Deeds want to give me a hand?,” there was a hesitation before two Sandlers, came forward to hold the Scuba Steve box steady, allowing Mr. Sandler to stir up the papers inside.
The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago, and the Scuba Steve box now resting on the stool had been put into use even before Old Man Sandler, the oldest man in town, was born. Mr. Sandler spoke frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but everyone admitted they were still hopeful a man-sized Scuba Steve would show up someday in lieu of it. There was a story that the present box had been made with love from a now adult Sprouse twin when the first people settled down to make a village here. But now, he was too busy messed up with a CW plot line about a troubled author that wore a weird hat.
Mr. Sandler and his oldest son, Adam, held the Scuba Steve box securely on the stool until Mr. Sandler stirred the papers thoroughly with his hand. Because so much of the ritual had been forgotten or discarded, Mr. Sandler had been successful in having slips of paper substituted for Diamond encrusted Furby necklaces that had been used for generations. Diamond encrusted Ferby necklaces, Mr. Sandler had argued, had been all the rage back when Mr. Sandler was big in the money laundering buiness, but now that the population was more than three hundred Adam Sandlers who were likely to keep growing with his IMDB page, it was necessary to use something that would fit more easily into the Scuba Steve box. The night before the lottery, Mr. Sandler and Mr. Sandler Jr. made up the slips of paper and put them into the box. It was then taken to the Mr. Deeds safe of Mr. Sandlers’ mansion and locked up until Crazy Eyes was ready to take it to the square next morning. The rest of the year, the box was auctioned off to be stored at an In-N-Out of any Sandlers choosing.
There was a great deal of fussing to be done before Mr. Sandler declared the lottery open. There were the lists to make up—how many times did Steve Buscemi show up, were all those Billy Idol cameos necessary. There was the proper swearing-in of Mr. Sandler by the Wedding Singer, as the official of the lottery; who held a recital of some sort, a tuneless chant rattled off duly each year to Drew Barrymore on a plane. Some people believed the official of the lottery snuck in to first class when he sang it and, to honor that tradition, the Sandlers of the town turned capitalism on it’s head by becoming multi-millionaires who only wear baggy clothes for a living. There had been, also, a ritual salute, a galloping with a golf club stuck between your legs used to address each person who came up to draw from the box, but this also changed with time. Now it felt necessary only for the official Sandler to speak in his signature man child voice to each approaching Sandler as they grabbed a slip of paper from the Scuba Steve box.
Just as Mr. Sandler finally left off talking and turned to the assembled Sandlers, Mrs. Sandler came hurriedly along the path to the square, her Jack & Jill updo tamed, her sweat pants thrown over her shoulder, and slid into place in the back of the crowd. “Forgot what day it was,” she said to Mrs. Sandler, who stood next to her, and they both laughed softly. “Thought my old Sandler was out back filling up the water tank,” Mrs. Sandler went on, “and then I looked out the window and he was halfway down the forty yard line gone. Then I remembered it was the twenty-seventh and I came a-running.” She dried her hands on her apron, and Mrs. Sandler said, “You’re in time, though. They haven’t started messing with the Zohan yet.”
Mrs. Sandler craned her neck to see through the crowd and found her husband and children standing near the front. She tapped Mrs. Sandler on the arm as a farewell and began to make her way through the crowd. The people separated good-humoredly to let her through; two or three people said, in voices just loud enough to be heard across the crowd, “Here comes your Mrs. Sandler,” and “Adam look, she Jack and Jill’d after all.” Mrs. Sandler reached her husband, and Mr. Sandler, who had been waiting, said cheerfully, “Thought we’d have to cut these gems without you, Sandler.” and soft laughter ran through the crowd as the people realized they were all Adam Sandler and God damnit, they were so cool in that movie.
“Well, now,” Mr. Sandler said soberly, “guess we better get started. Anybody not here?”
“Sandler,” several people said. “Sandler, and Sandler.”
Mr. Sandler consulted his list. “Adam Sandler,” he said. “That’s right. He should be on his fiftieth first date right now. Who’s drawing for him?”
“Me, I guess,” a woman who was not Drew Barrymore said. Mr. Sandler turned to look at her and said: “Wife or Drew Barrymore draws for husband Adam Sandler. You know the rules,” Mr. Sandler said. “Don’t you have a grown boy to do it for you, not Drew Barrymore?”
Although Mr. Sandler and everyone else in the village knew the answer perfectly well, it was the business of the official of the lottery to ask such questions formally. Mr. Sandler waited with an expression of polite interest while Not Drew Barrymore answered.
“Sandler Jr. isn’t sixteen yet,” Not Drew Barrymore said regretfully. “Guess I gotta fill in for the old man this year.”
“Right,” Mr. Sandler said. He made a note on the list he was holding. Then he asked, “Sandler’s boy drawing this year?”
A tall Sandler in the crowd raised his hand. “Here,” he said. “I’m drawing for Helen Mama and me.” He blinked nervously and ducked his head as several voices in the crowd said things like “Good Longfellow Deeds, that Adam” and “Really got his shit together after laundering all that money just to bet on a stupid basketball game.”
“Well,” Mr. Sandler said, “guess that’s everyone. Old Man Sandler make it?”
“Here,” a voice said, and Mr. Sandler nodded.
A sudden hush fell on the crowd, softer than the reconciliation Adam Sandler has with his family when he’s dying in the rain during Click. As Mr. Sandler cleared his throat and looked at the list, he called. “Now, I’ll read the names—heads of Adam Sandler families first—and the Jacks of the family come up and take a paper out of the box for the Jills. Keep the paper folded in your hand without looking at it until everyone has had a turn. Everything clear?
“Sandler,” Mr. Sandler said. “Sandler. . . . Sandler.”
“Seems like there’s no time at all between lotteries any more,” Mrs. Sandler said to Mrs. Sandler in the back row. “Seems like we got through with the last one six People’s Choice Awards ago.”
“Time sure goes when you only win 46 out of 120 nominations,” Mrs. Sandler said.
“Sandler. . . . Sandler.”
“There goes my old man Sand,” Mrs. Sandler said. She held her breath while her husband went forward.
“Sandler,” Mr. Sandler said, and Mrs. Sandler went steadily to the Scuba Steve box while one of the women said, “Shampoo is better, I go on first and clean the hair” and another said, “Conditioner is better. I leave the hair silky and smooth.”
“We’re next,” Mrs. Sandler said. She watched while husband Sandler came around from the side of the box, greeted Mr. Sandler gravely, and selected a slip of paper from the box. By now, all through the crowd there were Sandler men holding the small folded papers in their hands, all yelling at them aggressively in different Adam Sandler octaves.
“Sandler..... Sandler.”
“Get up there, Adam,” Mrs. Sandler said, as the people near her kept yelling in Opera Man gibberish.
“Sandler.”
“They do say,” Mr. Sandler said to Old Man Sandler, who stood next to him, “that over in the north village they’re talking of giving up the lottery.”
Old Man Sandler snorted. “Pack of crazy fools,” he said. “Listening to the young folks, nothing’s good enough for them. Next thing you know, they’ll be eating pieces of shit for breakfast, pronouncing couples as “Chuck and Larry.” Used to be a saying I heard growing up. “If peeing your pants is cool, call me Miles Davis.” We’re all over here peeing our pants, shitting our eyes out,” he added petulantly. “Bad enough to see young Adam Sandler up there making it look cool for everyone. ”
“Some places have already quit lotteries,” Mrs. Sandler said.
“Nothing but trouble in that,” Old Man Warner said stoutly. “You don’t mess with the Zohan.”
“Sandler.” Adam Sandler watched his father go forward. “Sandler. . . . Sandler.”
“I wish they’d hurry,” Mrs. Sandler said to her eldest Sandler son.
“They’re almost through,” her Eldest Sandler son said.
“You get ready to run tell Dad,” Mrs. Sandler said.
Mr. Sandler called his own name and then stepped forward precisely and selected a slip from the box. Then he called, “Warner.”
“Seventy-seventh year I been in the lottery,” Old Man Sandler said as he went through the crowd. “Seventy-seventh time.”
“Sandler.” The tall boy came awkwardly through the crowd. Someone said, “Don’t be nervous, Adam,” and Mr. Sandler said, “This ain’t Jack Nicholson in Anger Management. No one’s gonna yell at you.”
“Sandler.”
After that, there was a long pause, a breathless pause, until Mr. Sandler, holding his slip of paper in the air, said, “All right, Longfellow Deeds.” For a minute, no one moved, and then all the slips of paper were opened. Suddenly, all the women began to speak at once, saying, “Who is it?,” “Who’s got it?,” “Is it the Sandlers?,” “Is it the Sandlers?” Then the voices began to say, “It’s Sandler. It’s Adam Sandler,” “Adam Sandler’s got it.”
“Go tell your father,” Mrs. Sandler said to her oldest son, Sandler.
People began to look around to see the Sandlers. Adam Sandler was standing quiet, staring down at the paper in his hand as if he’d just been rejected by Fauriza Banks for the four millionth time. Suddenly, Mrs. Sandler shouted to Mr. Sandler, “You didn’t give him time to take any paper he wanted. Rewind it. Key smash the Click remote buttons at once. It wasn’t fair!”
“Be a good sport, Adam,” Mrs. Delacroix called, and Mrs. Graves said, “Don’t call out the tradition the same way you called out tennis star John Mcenroe in Mr. Deeds.”
“Son of a bitch ball. Why didn’t you go home? That’s your home!” Bill Hutchinson said tearfully, kissing his heart and pointing his finger up to the sky as Abraham Lincoln smiled down on him..
“Well, everyone,” Mr. Sandler said, “that was done pretty fast. Like really fast. Faster than Adam finished grade school in Billy Maddison.” He consulted his next list. “Adam,” he said, “you draw for the Sandler family. You got any other households in the Sandlers?”
“There’s Adam and Adam,” Mrs. Sandler yelled, casually offering up the children she never cared about. “Make them take their chance!”
Mr. Sandler suddenly turned to Mrs. Sandler, delivering his message gently yet firmly. “What you just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. Daughters draw with their husbands’ families, Adam. You know that as well as anyone else. Everyone in the room is now dumber for having listened to you. I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul.”
“It just isn’t fair,” Adam said.
“I guess not, Adam,” Adam Sandler said regretfully. “I mean, my daughter draws with her husband Mambuza Bongo Guy from Hot Chick’s family, and I’ve got no other family except the kids.”
“Then, as far as drawing for families is concerned, it’s you,” Mr. Sandler said in explanation, opening the floor for discussion the way Phillip Seymour Hoffman did at the end of Punch Drunk Love. “And as far as drawing for households is concerned, that’s you, too. Right?”
“Right,” Adam Sandler said.
“How many kids, Adam?” Mr. Sandler asked formally.
“Three,” Bill Hutchinson said. “Well, four if you count Dan Akyroyd in Coneheads.”
“We don’t,” said Mr. Sandler.
“There’s Adam, Jr., and Adam, and little Adam Sandler. And Adam and me, of course.”
“All right, then,” Mr. Sandler said. “Adam, you got their tickets back?”
Mr. Sandler nodded and held up the slips of paper. “Put them in the box, then,” Mr. Sandler directed. “Take Adam’s and put it in.”
“I think we ought to start over,” Mrs. Sandler said, as quietly as she could. “I tell you it wasn’t fair. You didn’t give him time enough to choose. Everybody saw that. Steve Buscemi, Brendan Frasier, Kevin James, Allen Covert, David Spade, Chris Rock-”
Mr. Sandler held up his hand. “Okay Mrs. Sandler, we get it.” He turned to Mr. Sandler. “Mr. Sandler? The slips please?”
Mr. Sandler selected the five slips and put them in the box. He dropped all the papers but those onto the ground, where the breeze caught them and dragged them to hell, lying peacefully with Little Nicky.
“Listen, everybody,” Mrs. Sandler was saying to the people around her.
“Ready, Adam?” Mr. Sandler asked, and Bill Hutchinson, with one quick glance around at his wife and children, nodded.
“Remember,” Mr. Sandler said, “take the slips and keep them folded until each person has taken one. Adam, you help little Adam.” Mr. Sandler took the gloved hand of the little boy, his arm tired from throwing golf clubs at Shooter McGaven. “Take a paper out of the box, Adam,” Mr. Sandler said. Adam put his hand into the box and laughed. “Take just one paper,” Mr. Sandler said.
“Gee I can’t wait till I win the lottery,” said little Adam.
Slowly, Mr. Sandler turned to Adam. He clutched his little cheeks in his hands and said, “don’t you say that. Don’t you ever say that. Stay here. Stay here as long as you can. For the love of God, cherish it. You have to cherish it.”
“Adam, let go. You have to hold the box for him.” Mr. Sandler pried Mr. Sandler’s hand off the kids face and removed the folded paper from the tight fist that punched Bob Barker square in the jaw earlier that day.
“Adam next,” Mr. Sandler said. Adam was twelve, and her school friends breathed heavily as she went forward, swishing her skirt, and took a slip daintily from the box like she was fruity little twink George from the Wedding Singer. “Adam, Jr.,” Mr. Sandler said, and Adam, his feet 38 inches and his bicep 14 inches, listed on Wikipedia for some reason, nearly knocked the box over as he got a paper out. “Adam,” Mr. Sandler said. She hesitated for a minute, looking around defiantly, and then set her lips and went up to the box. She snatched a paper out and held it behind her the way Vanessa hid her elicit love affair in Big Daddy.
“Adam,” Mr. Sandler said, and Adam Sandler reached into the box and felt around, bringing his hand out at last with the slip of paper in it.
The crowd was quiet. A girl whispered, “I hope it’s not Nancy,” and the sound of the whisper reached the edges of the crowd.
“It’s not the way it used to be,” Old Man Sandler said, still talking about his tired days of SNL. “They let me be a vampire back then!”
“That’s nice Old Man Sandler,” Mrs. Sandler despondently said.
“All right,” Mr. Sandler said. “Open the papers. Adam, you open little Adam.”
Mr. Sandler opened the slip of paper and a general sigh rippled through the crowd, loud and sorrowful as if Jennifer Anniston had been cast again as the romantic lead. Adam and Adam, Jr., opened theirs at the same time, and both beamed and laughed, turning around to the crowd holding their slips of paper above their heads.
“Adam,” Mr. Sandler said. There was a pause, and then Mr. Sandler looked at Adam Sandler, and Adam unfolded his paper and showed it. It was blank.
“It’s Adam,” Mr. Sandler said, and his voice was hushed, softer than a whisper when introducing the Hanukah Song. “Show us her paper, Adam.”
Adam Sandler went over to his wife and forced the slip of paper out of her hand. It had a black spot on it, the black spot Mr. Sandler had made the night before with the heavy eyeliner pencil used for his Axl Rose character. Adam Sandler held it up, and there was a stir in the crowd.
“All right, folks,” Mr. Sandler said. “Let’s finish quickly.”
Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original Scuba Steve box, they still remembered to use golf balls. The pile of golf balls the boys had made earlier was ready, an adventure they were ready to embark on a la’ Bedtime Stories. Mrs. Sandler selected a golf ball so large she had to pick it up with both hands and turned to Mrs. Sandler. “Come on,” she said. “Hurry up. You’re running as slow as Kathy Bates in Waterboy.”
Mrs. Sandler had small golf balls in both hands, and she said, gasping for breath. “I can’t run at all. You’ll have to go ahead and I’ll catch up with you.”
“Fine,” Mrs. Sandler responded before running off yelling “YOU’RE GONNA DIE CLOWN.”
The children had golf balls already, and someone gave little Adam Sandler a few tiny golf tees, aiding him on as he stoned his mother to death.
Adam Sandler was in the center of a cleared space by now, and she held her hands out desperately as the villagers moved in on her. “It isn’t fair,” she said. A golf ball hit her on the side of the head, blood trickling down the side of her head like the Clown from Billy Maddison.
Old Man Sandler was saying, “Come on, come on, everyone,” popping his wooden leg off for more leverage, the one implanted after his original leg was ripped clean off by an alligator on the golf course. Adam Sandler was in the front of the crowd of villagers, with Mrs. Sandler beside him.
“It isn’t fair, it isn’t right,” Mrs. Sandler screamed, and then they were upon her, pelting little golf balls at the top of her forehead like they had the arm of Paul Crewe in the Longest Yard.The morning of
June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green. The people of the village, all Adam Sandler characters, began to gather in the square, between the post office and the bank. In some towns, there were so many Adam Sandlers that the lottery took two days and had to be started on June 26th, but in this village, where there were only three hundred Adam Sandler characters, the whole lottery took only about two hours. It could begin at ten o’clock in the morning and still be through in time to allow the Sandlers to get back to their large expensive Mr. Deeds mansion for top golf and fancy hors-doeuvres.
Adam Sandler assembled first, of course, followed by the children from Billy Maddison. School was recently over for the summer, and the feeling of liberty sat uneasily among them. They tended to gather together quietly for a while before they broke into boisterous play, talking of the classroom Adam Sandler ripped thru in a week and the teacher he was boinking because of it. Red headed bully from Billy Maddison, also known as O’Doyle had already stuffed his pockets full of golf balls, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest golf balls. “O’ Doyle” eventually made a great pile of golf balls in one corner of the square to protect it from the other children, smaller versions of Adam Sandler like when his head was superimposed on a baby Sandler in Funny People.
Soon the Sandlers began to gather, surveying their Sandler children, speaking of the Oscar they lost, and the next Grown Ups installment. They stood together, away from the pile of golf balls in the corner, and their jokes were all just the indiscernible voice from Hubie Halloween. The women, just Adam Sandler in a wig, came shortly after their menfolk. They greeted one another and exchanged bits of gossip as they went to join their husbands call that Jack & Jill. Soon the women Sandlers, standing by their husband Sandlers, began to call to their children Sandlers. O’Doyle ducked under his mother’s grasping hand and ran, laughing, back to the pile of golf balls like the little shit that he is.
The lottery was conducted—as were the bar mitzfah’s, the teen-age club, the late return to parenting Andy Samberg in That’s my Boy—by Adam Sandler, who had time and energy to devote to civic activities now that he had the Click remote. He was a round-faced, nine time kids choice awards winner who sang songs at weddings that were sometimes off tone considering his recent breakup with Linda. When he arrived in the square, carrying the Scuba Steve themed box, there was a murmur of conversation among the villagers, and he waved and called, “it’s nudey magazine day, folks.” The villagers kept their distance, leaving a space between themselves and the Scuba Steve themed box, when Mr. Sandler said, “Some of you Longfellow Deeds want to give me a hand?,” there was a hesitation before two Sandlers, came forward to hold the Scuba Steve box steady, allowing Mr. Sandler to stir up the papers inside.
The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago, and the Scuba Steve box now resting on the stool had been put into use even before Old Man Sandler, the oldest man in town, was born. Mr. Sandler spoke frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but everyone admitted they were still hopeful a man-sized Scuba Steve would show up someday in lieu of it. There was a story that the present box had been made with love from a now adult Sprouse twin when the first people settled down to make a village here. But now, he was too busy messed up with a CW plot line about a troubled author that wore a weird hat.
Mr. Sandler and his oldest son, Adam, held the Scuba Steve box securely on the stool until Mr. Sandler stirred the papers thoroughly with his hand. Because so much of the ritual had been forgotten or discarded, Mr. Sandler had been successful in having slips of paper substituted for Diamond encrusted Furby necklaces that had been used for generations. Diamond encrusted Ferby necklaces, Mr. Sandler had argued, had been all the rage back when Mr. Sandler was big in the money laundering buiness, but now that the population was more than three hundred Adam Sandlers who were likely to keep growing with his IMDB page, it was necessary to use something that would fit more easily into the Scuba Steve box. The night before the lottery, Mr. Sandler and Mr. Sandler Jr. made up the slips of paper and put them into the box. It was then taken to the Mr. Deeds safe of Mr. Sandlers’ mansion and locked up until Crazy Eyes was ready to take it to the square next morning. The rest of the year, the box was auctioned off to be stored at an In-N-Out of any Sandlers choosing.
There was a great deal of fussing to be done before Mr. Sandler declared the lottery open. There were the lists to make up—how many times did Steve Buscemi show up, were all those Billy Idol cameos necessary. There was the proper swearing-in of Mr. Sandler by the Wedding Singer, as the official of the lottery; who held a recital of some sort, a tuneless chant rattled off duly each year to Drew Barrymore on a plane. Some people believed the official of the lottery snuck in to first class when he sang it and, to honor that tradition, the Sandlers of the town turned capitalism on it’s head by becoming multi-millionaires who only wear baggy clothes for a living. There had been, also, a ritual salute, a galloping with a golf club stuck between your legs used to address each person who came up to draw from the box, but this also changed with time. Now it felt necessary only for the official Sandler to speak in his signature man child voice to each approaching Sandler as they grabbed a slip of paper from the Scuba Steve box.
Just as Mr. Sandler finally left off talking and turned to the assembled Sandlers, Mrs. Sandler came hurriedly along the path to the square, her Jack & Jill updo tamed, her sweat pants thrown over her shoulder, and slid into place in the back of the crowd. “Forgot what day it was,” she said to Mrs. Sandler, who stood next to her, and they both laughed softly. “Thought my old Sandler was out back filling up the water tank,” Mrs. Sandler went on, “and then I looked out the window and he was halfway down the forty yard line gone. Then I remembered it was the twenty-seventh and I came a-running.” She dried her hands on her apron, and Mrs. Sandler said, “You’re in time, though. They haven’t started messing with the Zohan yet.”
Mrs. Sandler craned her neck to see through the crowd and found her husband and children standing near the front. She tapped Mrs. Sandler on the arm as a farewell and began to make her way through the crowd. The people separated good-humoredly to let her through; two or three people said, in voices just loud enough to be heard across the crowd, “Here comes your Mrs. Sandler,” and “Adam look, she Jack and Jill’d after all.” Mrs. Sandler reached her husband, and Mr. Sandler, who had been waiting, said cheerfully, “Thought we’d have to cut these gems without you, Sandler.” and soft laughter ran through the crowd as the people realized they were all Adam Sandler and God damnit, they were so cool in that movie.
“Well, now,” Mr. Sandler said soberly, “guess we better get started. Anybody not here?”
“Sandler,” several people said. “Sandler, and Sandler.”
Mr. Sandler consulted his list. “Adam Sandler,” he said. “That’s right. He should be on his fiftieth first date right now. Who’s drawing for him?”
“Me, I guess,” a woman who was not Drew Barrymore said. Mr. Sandler turned to look at her and said: “Wife or Drew Barrymore draws for husband Adam Sandler. You know the rules,” Mr. Sandler said. “Don’t you have a grown boy to do it for you, not Drew Barrymore?”
Although Mr. Sandler and everyone else in the village knew the answer perfectly well, it was the business of the official of the lottery to ask such questions formally. Mr. Sandler waited with an expression of polite interest while Not Drew Barrymore answered.
“Sandler Jr. isn’t sixteen yet,” Not Drew Barrymore said regretfully. “Guess I gotta fill in for the old man this year.”
“Right,” Mr. Sandler said. He made a note on the list he was holding. Then he asked, “Sandler’s boy drawing this year?”
A tall Sandler in the crowd raised his hand. “Here,” he said. “I’m drawing for Helen Mama and me.” He blinked nervously and ducked his head as several voices in the crowd said things like “Good Longfellow Deeds, that Adam” and “Really got his shit together after laundering all that money just to bet on a stupid basketball game.”
“Well,” Mr. Sandler said, “guess that’s everyone. Old Man Sandler make it?”
“Here,” a voice said, and Mr. Sandler nodded.
A sudden hush fell on the crowd, softer than the reconciliation Adam Sandler has with his family when he’s dying in the rain during Click. As Mr. Sandler cleared his throat and looked at the list, he called. “Now, I’ll read the names—heads of Adam Sandler families first—and the Jacks of the family come up and take a paper out of the box for the Jills. Keep the paper folded in your hand without looking at it until everyone has had a turn. Everything clear?
“Sandler,” Mr. Sandler said. “Sandler. . . . Sandler.”
“Seems like there’s no time at all between lotteries any more,” Mrs. Sandler said to Mrs. Sandler in the back row. “Seems like we got through with the last one six People’s Choice Awards ago.”
“Time sure goes when you only win 46 out of 120 nominations,” Mrs. Sandler said.
“Sandler. . . . Sandler.”
“There goes my old man Sand,” Mrs. Sandler said. She held her breath while her husband went forward.
“Sandler,” Mr. Sandler said, and Mrs. Sandler went steadily to the Scuba Steve box while one of the women said, “Shampoo is better, I go on first and clean the hair” and another said, “Conditioner is better. I leave the hair silky and smooth.”
“We’re next,” Mrs. Sandler said. She watched while husband Sandler came around from the side of the box, greeted Mr. Sandler gravely, and selected a slip of paper from the box. By now, all through the crowd there were Sandler men holding the small folded papers in their hands, all yelling at them aggressively in different Adam Sandler octaves.
“Sandler..... Sandler.”
“Get up there, Adam,” Mrs. Sandler said, as the people near her kept yelling in Opera Man gibberish.
“Sandler.”
“They do say,” Mr. Sandler said to Old Man Sandler, who stood next to him, “that over in the north village they’re talking of giving up the lottery.”
Old Man Sandler snorted. “Pack of crazy fools,” he said. “Listening to the young folks, nothing’s good enough for them. Next thing you know, they’ll be eating pieces of shit for breakfast, pronouncing couples as “Chuck and Larry.” Used to be a saying I heard growing up. “If peeing your pants is cool, call me Miles Davis.” We’re all over here peeing our pants, shitting our eyes out,” he added petulantly. “Bad enough to see young Adam Sandler up there making it look cool for everyone. ”
“Some places have already quit lotteries,” Mrs. Sandler said.
“Nothing but trouble in that,” Old Man Sandler said stoutly. “You don’t mess with the Zohan.”
“Sandler.” Adam Sandler watched his father go forward. “Sandler. . . . Sandler.”
“I wish they’d hurry,” Mrs. Sandler said to her eldest Sandler son.
“They’re almost through,” her Eldest Sandler son said.
“You get ready to run tell Dad,” Mrs. Sandler said.
Mr. Sandler called his own name and then stepped forward precisely and selected a slip from the box. Then he called, “Sandler.”
“Seventy-seventh year I been in the lottery,” Old Man Sandler said as he went through the crowd. “Seventy-seventh time.”
“Sandler.” The tall boy came awkwardly through the crowd. Someone said, “Don’t be nervous, Adam,” and Mr. Sandler said, “This ain’t Jack Nicholson in Anger Management. No one’s gonna yell at you.”
“Sandler.”
After that, there was a long pause, a breathless pause, until Mr. Sandler, holding his slip of paper in the air, said, “All right, Longfellow Deeds.” For a minute, no one moved, and then all the slips of paper were opened. Suddenly, all the women began to speak at once, saying, “Who is it?,” “Who’s got it?,” “Is it the Sandlers?,” “Is it the Sandlers?” Then the voices began to say, “It’s Sandler. It’s Adam Sandler,” “Adam Sandler’s got it.”
“Go tell your father,” Mrs. Sandler said to her oldest son, Sandler.
People began to look around to see the Sandlers. Adam Sandler was standing quiet, staring down at the paper in his hand as if he’d just been rejected by Fauriza Banks for the four millionth time. Suddenly, Mrs. Sandler shouted to Mr. Sandler, “You didn’t give him time to take any paper he wanted. Rewind it. Key smash the Click remote buttons at once. It wasn’t fair!”
“Be a good sport, Adam,” Mrs. Delacroix called, and Mrs. Graves said, “Don’t call out the tradition the same way you called out tennis star John Mcenroe in Mr. Deeds.”
“Son of a bitch ball. Why didn’t you go home? That’s your home!” Adam Sandler said tearfully, kissing his heart and pointing his finger up to the sky as Abraham Lincoln smiled down on him..
“Well, everyone,” Mr. Sandler said, “that was done pretty fast. Like really fast. Faster than Adam finished grade school in Billy Maddison.” He consulted his next list. “Adam,” he said, “you draw for the Sandler family. You got any other households in the Sandlers?”
“There’s Adam and Adam,” Mrs. Sandler yelled, casually offering up the children she never cared about. “Make them take their chance!”
Mr. Sandler suddenly turned to Mrs. Sandler, delivering his message gently yet firmly. “What you just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. Daughters draw with their husbands’ families, Adam. You know that as well as anyone else. Everyone in the room is now dumber for having listened to you. I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul.”
“It just isn’t fair,” Adam said.
“I guess not, Adam,” Adam Sandler said regretfully. “I mean, my daughter draws with her husband Mambuza Bongo Guy from Hot Chick’s family, and I’ve got no other family except the kids.”
“Then, as far as drawing for families is concerned, it’s you,” Mr. Sandler said in explanation, opening the floor for discussion the way Phillip Seymour Hoffman did at the end of Punch Drunk Love. “And as far as drawing for households is concerned, that’s you, too. Right?”
“Right,” Adam Sandler said.
“How many kids, Adam?” Mr. Sandler asked formally.
“Three,” Adam Sandler said. “Well, four if you count Dan Akyroyd in Coneheads.”
“We don’t,” said Mr. Sandler.
“There’s Adam, Jr., and Adam, and little Adam Sandler. And Adam and me, of course.”
“All right, then,” Mr. Sandler said. “Adam, you got their tickets back?”
Mr. Sandler nodded and held up the slips of paper. “Put them in the box, then,” Mr. Sandler directed. “Take Adam’s and put it in.”
“I think we ought to start over,” Mrs. Sandler said, as quietly as she could. “I tell you it wasn’t fair. You didn’t give him time enough to choose. Everybody saw that. Steve Buscemi, Brendan Frasier, Kevin James, Allen Covert, David Spade, Chris Rock-”
Mr. Sandler held up his hand. “Okay Mrs. Sandler, we get it.” He turned to Mr. Sandler. “Mr. Sandler? The slips please?”
Mr. Sandler selected the five slips and put them in the box. He dropped all the papers but those onto the ground, where the breeze caught them and dragged them to hell, lying peacefully with Little Nicky.
“Listen, everybody,” Mrs. Sandler was saying to the people around her.
“Ready, Adam?” Mr. Sandler asked, and Adam Sandler, with one quick glance around at his wife and children, nodded.
“Remember,” Mr. Sandler said, “take the slips and keep them folded until each person has taken one. Adam, you help little Adam.” Mr. Sandler took the gloved hand of the little boy, his arm tired from throwing golf clubs at Shooter McGaven. “Take a paper out of the box, Adam,” Mr. Sandler said. Adam put his hand into the box and laughed. “Take just one paper,” Mr. Sandler said.
“Gee I can’t wait till I win the lottery,” said little Adam.
Slowly, Mr. Sandler turned to Adam. He clutched his little cheeks in his hands and said, “don’t you say that. Don’t you ever say that. Stay here. Stay here as long as you can. For the love of God, cherish it. You have to cherish it.”
“Adam, let go. You have to hold the box for him.” Mr. Sandler pried Mr. Sandler’s hand off the kids face and removed the folded paper from the tight fist that punched Bob Barker square in the jaw earlier that day.
“Adam next,” Mr. Sandler said. Adam was twelve, and her school friends breathed heavily as she went forward, swishing her skirt, and took a slip daintily from the box like she was fruity little twink George from the Wedding Singer. “Adam, Jr.,” Mr. Sandler said, and Adam, his feet 38 inches and his bicep 14 inches, listed on Wikipedia for some reason, nearly knocked the box over as he got a paper out. “Adam,” Mr. Sandler said. She hesitated for a minute, looking around defiantly, and then set her lips and went up to the box. She snatched a paper out and held it behind her the way Vanessa hid her elicit love affair in Big Daddy.
“Adam,” Mr. Sandler said, and Adam Sandler reached into the box and felt around, bringing his hand out at last with the slip of paper in it.
The crowd was quiet. A girl whispered, “I hope it’s not Nancy,” and the sound of the whisper reached the edges of the crowd.
“It’s not the way it used to be,” Old Man Sandler said, still talking about his tired days of SNL. “They let me be a vampire back then!”
“That’s nice Old Man Sandler,” Mrs. Sandler despondently said.
“All right,” Mr. Sandler said. “Open the papers. Adam, you open little Adam.”
Mr. Sandler opened the slip of paper and a general sigh rippled through the crowd, loud and sorrowful as if Jennifer Anniston had been cast again as the romantic lead. Adam and Adam, Jr., opened theirs at the same time, and both beamed and laughed, turning around to the crowd holding their slips of paper above their heads.
“Adam,” Mr. Sandler said. There was a pause, and then Mr. Sandler looked at Adam Sandler, and Adam unfolded his paper and showed it. It was blank.
“It’s Adam,” Mr. Sandler said, and his voice was hushed, softer than a whisper when introducing the Hanukah Song. “Show us her paper, Adam.”
Adam Sandler went over to his wife and forced the slip of paper out of her hand. It had a black spot on it, the black spot Mr. Sandler had made the night before with the heavy eyeliner pencil used for his Axl Rose character. Adam Sandler held it up, and there was a stir in the crowd.
“All right, folks,” Mr. Sandler said. “Let’s finish quickly.”
Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original Scuba Steve box, they still remembered to use golf balls. The pile of golf balls the boys had made earlier was ready, an adventure they were ready to embark on a la’ Bedtime Stories. Mrs. Sandler selected a golf ball so large she had to pick it up with both hands and turned to Mrs. Sandler. “Come on,” she said. “Hurry up. You’re running as slow as Kathy Bates in Waterboy.”
Mrs. Sandler had small golf balls in both hands, and she said, gasping for breath. “I can’t run at all. You’ll have to go ahead and I’ll catch up with you.”
“Fine,” Mrs. Sandler responded before running off yelling “YOU’RE GONNA DIE CLOWN.”
The children had golf balls already, and someone gave little Adam Sandler a few tiny golf tees, aiding him on as he stoned his mother to death.
Adam Sandler was in the center of a cleared space by now, and she held her hands out desperately as the villagers moved in on her. “It isn’t fair,” she said. A golf ball hit her on the side of the head, blood trickling down the side of her head like the Clown from Billy Maddison.
Old Man Sandler was saying, “Come on, come on, everyone,” popping his wooden leg off for more leverage, the one implanted after his original leg was ripped clean off by an alligator on the golf course. Adam Sandler was in the front of the crowd of villagers, with Mrs. Sandler beside him.
“It isn’t fair, it isn’t right,” Mrs. Sandler screamed, and then they were upon her, pelting little golf balls at the top of her forehead like they had the arm of Paul Crewe in the Longest Yard.
What. Have. You. Done. Lol
I have no words, other than great job. You maniac.