Your Wife May Have Already Won $1.3 Million!

Men, is your wife acting tired of you? Is she talking about leaving? Is she telling you the magic’s gone?

Are the telephone Yellow Pages open to the section marked “Attorneys?”

Is she packing a suitcase?

Is it a brand new, really expensive-looking suitcase?

Have you caught your wife leafing through a stack of travel brochures to places like Paris or Rio?

Do you find business cards near her purse from Ferrari car dealers?

Has she suddenly begun suggesting to you that marriage counseling would be “a big waste of time?”

Did she request that your divorce papers be delivered by Fed Ex?

Does she tell you to keep everything--the car, the house, the furniture, the plants, the dog--because all she wants is a fresh start?

I know what’s wrong, guys.

Your wife won the lottery.

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Quick, go check.

Run down to your bank. Make out a withdrawal slip for “1 million dollars and 0 cents” from your joint checking account.

If the teller asks, “How would you like that, sir--in hundreds or small bills?” then you’ll know your wife did indeed hit a jackpot and didn’t tell you about it.

But if the teller busts out laughing, chances are that your wife is an honest woman who really is just sick of your guts in general.

On the other hand, fellas, it’s entirely possible she could have stashed her loot someplace else.

Like, say, Switzerland.

So please don’t take any risks. If your wife suddenly begins bringing up the subject of a divorce--giving you a lot of boo-hoo-hoo about being unhappy--you just be sure to ask her: “Honey, you didn’t happen to win a Super Lotto, did you?”

Because you never know.

I can’t vouch for a fact that a single one of the above scenarios apply to Thomas and Denise Rossi, our state lottery’s oddest couple.

All I know for sure is that we shouldn’t expect Mr. and Mrs. Rossi to be panelists on “The Newlywed Game” any day soon.

Maybe you know their story.

By all available evidence, Denise Rossi and five co-workers from a clothing design store hit California’s Super Lotto for a cool $6.6 million, on Dec. 28, 1996.

Denise did not run home to Thomas and say, “Hey, guess what Santa brought!”

She did not even tell her husband of 25 years, a photo technician, that she had good news and bad news. The good news being that she hit the jackpot. The bad news being that she was hitting the road, Jack.

Instead, Denise Rossi filed for divorce, 11 days after winning the lottery, two weeks after Christmas.

And her husband got Scrooged.

That little 1.3 mil she won? Golly, the subject just never came up during the division of community property.

If you look at it one way, this is actually a major triumph for women everywhere. After lifetimes of dealing with dirty, rotten, lying, conniving, double-crossing, scheming, cheating, deadbeat men, this is proof a woman can be just as big a rat.

Denise apparently claimed she was thinking about a divorce for years. Big deal. I thought about being an astronaut for years, but nobody shot me into space.

Thomas said things never seemed too bad to him, that he and Denise “even shared the same electric toothbrush.” Let’s hope he at least owned a separate razor.

Not until two years later did he learn the truth. A letter came to his house with advice about taking all of his winnings in a lump sum. Thomas didn’t even have a sum, let alone a lump.

There are a number of divorced wives who wish to continue to be supported in the style to which they have become accustomed. Well, some husbands wouldn’t mind the same treatment. Mr. Rossi just never got the chance--until now. A Los Angeles judge ruled Tuesday that by having the lottery money mailed to her mother and keeping mum, Denise Rossi, 49, violated state asset disclosure laws.

Tom Rossi, 65, is not entitled to half the money. He is entitled to all of it.

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Women.

Can’t win with ‘em, can’t collect our winnings without ‘em.

I believe future prenuptial agreements should specifically state that if either party wins the Super Lotto, he or she must run right home and shout: “We won the Super Lotto!”

Because if I ever discover that my wife is sneaking our lottery money to her mother, I’ll go share a toothbrush with somebody else.

I’m old-fashioned. I expect a woman to leave me because I’m worthless, not because she isn’t.

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Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to him at Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053. E-mail: mike.downey@latimes.com