Denied My Rightful Lottery

When I saw the Country Mart checker at the only working lottery machine, I was prepared to wait. How long could it take? She was probably getting ready to go on shift, or had just clocked out. So I stood back at a reasonable distance, waiting my turn. She glanced back and talked to me a bit. 

 

"Oh, no! You're buying my winner, heh, heh! I love those little crosswords!"

 

"Yes. They ARE fun to play."

 

A co-worker went past, and asked her how much she was spending.

"FORTY-FIVE???"

"I can't help it. They were winners."

That's when I noticed that the balance on the machine was $27. And that she kept buying my $3 crosswords. Not a selection as I had assumed. She was hitting the button to get them one at a time. You can get up to three of them at once, but she must know more about that machine's idiosyncrasies than I do. So was doing that to keep it from jamming.

SWEET GUMMI MARY! If she was going to buy $27 more of $3 tickets, that was going to take a while! As I mentioned before, I was trying to get to The Pony's house, and was already behind schedule. 

Just then, the machine ran out of $3 crossword tickets! No way was I going to wait for that roving manager lady to put in more tickets.

"Good luck! I'll get mine somewhere else today."

Which I did. Bought two each at the Gas Station Chicken Store, Backroads Casey's, and Orb K. Had three winners, for $16, $10, and $10. I hope that old lady checker also had some winners.