How Farmer H Makes Life 10 Times Harder, Even For Himself

This is the story of a loser.

Farmer H is not well-schooled in the ways of scratchers. He buys a ticket several times a week. So far, he's been able to scratch them and understand if he's a winner or a loser. That's a major accomplishment from the man who uncovered a WIN ALL symbol on a ticket I bought him last year for Christmas, and said, in monotone, "I got a winnell."

Yes, if it's a matter of scratching off five numbers, and then uncovering other numbers to see if they match, Farmer H does okay. Anything else is a crapshoot.

Tuesday evening, I sat down on the short couch, and saw that Farmer H had scratched a ticket.

"Oh, did you win anything?"

"I don't know. I got a lot of words."

"You bought a CROSSWORD ticket???"

"Yeah. I think that's what it is. They were out of the one that I wanted in the machine, so I took it."

"I don't play those any more. They take so long."

"Huh."

"You have to have a certain number of words to win anything. I think it's three."

"Well. I got a lot. But I don't know how to tell if I won."

"Let me see."

It took me a minute. I've played crossword tickets. You scratch off one letter at a time, in the big bank of letters, then go to the puzzles and rub off each of the letters you have. They change from the blue overlay to the white underneath. That's how you can tell how many words you have in the crossword. There will be all white letters making the word, with no blue left in-between, over letters you didn't have.

"What in the world have you done? You scratched off the whole thing!!! How am I supposed to know which letters you had? I'd have to look at each one, and compare it to the puzzle, and find some way to mark it, to differentiate from the other white letters. You're not supposed to uncover the whole thing!"

"Well. Do that, then."

"I'm not taking a half hour to find out you're a loser. I'll scan the bar code on my phone app. Here. Scratch off the bar code. You have the coin."

"It's on the back."

"No. If the bar code was on the back, the seller could scan all the tickets, and say, 'Oh, this one's a winner. I'll buy it.' No. The bar code has to be scratched to see if it's a winner. The other code is to ring up the price. The bar code is on the front. You'll have to scratch and find it. Usually, the bar code is at the bottom. But on some, it's along the side."

"This one don't have no bar code."

"I'm sure it does. HERE! Let me have the ticket. And the quarter. I'll find it."

Which I did, above the letters. A scan on my phone app revealed that this was NOT a winner. So much easier than trying to decipher the mess that Farmer H had made of the ticket.