Earlier this week, I popped into Country Mart to buy my $3 crossword scratchers. They're my favorite ticket. I had two winners to cash in at the machine. It reads the bar code, and gives you credit. No money back, though.
I had to stand by the cart corral, because there was a woman buying tickets at the left machine, and a man at the right machine. My favorite young guy checker chatted with me for a moment, until he got a customer. Then the deli guy went by and spoke. I guess this tipped off the lady that someone was behind her.
"Oh, I'm so sorry! Are you waiting to buy tickets?"
"I'm getting two $3 tickets out of one machine, and one $3 ticket out of the other."
"Joe! Joe! Aren't you done yet? What's taking you so long? I'm really sorry. We found a bunch of tickets, and we figured we could cash them in ourselves and not make people wait."
"No problem. I'm never in a hurry. You were here first."
"Joe!"
"I'm trying!" He had a handful of draw tickets. A handful. Like maybe 40 tickets.
"Maybe he'll get done and you can use that one."
I guess Joe had fed a lot of those tickets in, and had credit on the machine. Because he was pushing the buttons and getting scratchers out. The lady chatted over her shoulder as she picked tickets.
"We found them all over. In my purse, on the counter, in the couch..."
"I send my son two tickets every week. This week he won $50 on that ticket you just bought. I don't remember if I got it here or not."
"Joe!"
Joe must have reached a stopping point, because he mosied over to stand by the lady. He held out a handful of draw tickets. "These are no good."
While they discussed what they were going to do, I went to the right machine and bought two $3 crossword tickets. I didn't bother waiting to get one out of the other machine. I just saved my $3 winner. One of the tickets I bought won $20. So there's that.
I wonder why those two decided to cash in their tickets all at once. It's not like they needed money and could get cash from a machine. The service desk would have given them cash for the tickets. Maybe they just had a hunch. Maybe they won big.
I don't begrudge them their time at the machine. They beat me to it. Fair is fair.
3 comments:
Where I live lottery tickets are bought and cashed in at the local pharmacy, since we no longer have a newsagent and supermarkets don't sell lottery tickets, so whenever I'm buying or cashing, if there are more than two people at the section of the counter I go on and do my shopping instead so they're likely to be gone when I'm ready. Otherwise I'll just come back another day. I was at one of our petrol stations recently, stopped in on my way home from the dentist to get my newspaper and I didn't think to look if they also sold lottery tickets.
River,
Our pharmacies don't have lottery! Though some of our grocery stores do have pharmacies. I think it was different in Oklahoma, too. I never bought lottery there, but I looked it up online when we were planning to visit The Pony. I saw enough that I was not interested in buying any there. I'm pretty sure most gas stations and convenience stores sell lottery in all our states.
Most of our pharmacies don't, lottery is usually a newsagent thing and grocery stores here don't have pharmacies.
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