What kind of Ticket?

Today’s ragtag daily prompt is Pakapoo Ticket. That’s a new term to me. On this Thanksgiving day in the US, I’m thankful for the internet, where I was able to look it up and confirm from a number of sources that it has its origins in a Chinese lottery game known as pak ah pu and has come to mean messy or nearly indecipherable handwriting. From what I read, its an expression most used in Australia and New Zealand.

A pak ah pu ticket, from this article in The Tigers Mouth, which covers some of the history of Chinese Australia.

So, I’ve learned something today, about something I’d never heard of before. I’ve also solved a mystery regarding an expression used by a friend of ours. Margaret is originally from England, married to Roger a Brit who emigrated to the States years ago and whom we met at our local coffee shop many years back. Periodically, Margaret was known to exclaim, “I must look a ticket!”. We never knew how to translate this expression, but today it makes sense. One of Margaret’s adult daughters lives in New Zealand, and she and Roger now spend at least half the year there. I may be wrong (of course), but putting her expression and its context together with Pakapoo Ticket, it makes sense to me. If Margaret felt she was disheveled or messy, she looked a Ticket. If I ever see her again (they’ve moved out of town), I’ll ask!