Lost, Season 1

Martha Toomey:
Sam and Leonard were stationed at a listening post monitoring long wave transmissions out of the Pacific. Boring job. Sam hated it, nothing to do but listen to static night after night. Until one night, about 16 years ago, there's something in the static, a voice comes through, a voice repeating those numbers over and over again. [Hurley nearly spills his tea.] A couple of days later we're at the fair in Kalgoorlie and some wally there has got this jar, must have been big as a pony, and it's filled to the rim with beans. Fella's offering 50 grand to anyone able to guess how many beans are in that jar, within 10.

Hugo "Hurley" Reyes:
Sam used the numbers?

Martha Toomey:
Yep, the answer was exact. To the bean. Men had been running the same scam for 40 years and nobody had ever come close. So we won the money. On the way home a pick-up truck blows a tire on the highway, hits us head on. Lost my leg that night.

Hugo "Hurley" Reyes:
What about Sam?

Martha Toomey:
Barely a scratch. Most people would consider themselves lucky, but not him. He was never the same after that. He started keeping a record. Anything terrible that happened to anyone around us, he believed it was all because he used those numbers. He moved us out here in the middle of nowhere hoping it would stop.

Hugo "Hurley" Reyes:
Did it? Did he ever find a way to make it stop?

Martha Toomey:
Yep. He put a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. What is it you're looking for Mr. Reyes?

Hugo "Hurley" Reyes:
I used them, the numbers, to win the lottery. And now I think I'm under the same curse.

Martha Toomey:
Curse? There's no curse.

Hugo "Hurley" Reyes:
But you just told me...

Martha Toomey:
You think I'd still have my leg if Sam hadn't have picked the right number of beans?! You think that floods wouldn't have happened?! That homes wouldn't have burned down?! That people wouldn't have died?!

Hugo "Hurley" Reyes:
Well, yeah.

Martha Toomey:
You make your own luck, Mr. Reyes. Don't blame it on the damn numbers. You're looking for an excuse that doesn't exist.