Sometimes, People Need To Be Less Friendly

Bah! Humbug! You know curmudgeonly Mrs. HM does not really like people. In fact, they piss her off. Sometimes through no fault of their own, other than existing within her immediate vicinity. Pity the poor person who tries to make polite small talk. Mrs. HM is not having it! Well... not having it cheerfully.

I was standing at the new lottery machine in Save A Lot on Saturday. With these new machines, you make all your selections first. Then you go to the "checkout" feature, and it shows your list, and accepts payment. You can use cash, winning tickets, or a debit card. I scanned in my winning tickets, and was trying to put in a twenty for the rest of the amount. The machine won't let out any tickets until full payment is complete.

Dang it! That machine wouldn't take cash! The little green slot would not light up. It wouldn't even suck in my twenty and spit it back, like it does then there's a wrinkle or something wrong with the bill. I'd had this problem at 10Box a couple weeks ago. I figure it's because the machine is too full of money.

The problem is, that machine won't let you delete a few tickets from your shopping list. You have to delete ALL of them! Which was a problem, because I had quite a few $5 and $3 tickets, plus a PowerBall football draw ticket, and two $10 crossword tickets. It would have been fine if I could have just deleted the crosswords. But no. I had to buy them all, or delete them all. No way was I using a debit card. Not going down THAT slippery slope! I only buy with winning scratchers, or cash from my weekly allowance.

I had just deleted my entire shopping list when a dude came up behind my right shoulder.

"Saving any winners for me?"

"Oh, I'm sure there will be some left for you! Right now I'm trying to remember what tickets I had selected, because this machine isn't taking my money! I had to delete my selections, and now I'm starting over."

"It won't take money? I'm hoping it will take my twenty..."

Yeah. Whatever. Not my problem. I just wanted to pick my tickets again, and get them out of the machine. Because it had all my credits in there from my winners. No refunds on a lottery machine! You can't print out a credit ticket. I don't know what happens when the machine times out. Probably MOLottery keeps that cashed-in ticket money. I'm pretty sure these new machines re-set after 30 seconds of inactivity. They've given me a countdown before while I was still picking tickets, but that was when I didn't have any money/credit in it yet.

Anyhoo... the guy was just trying to be friendly, I think. Not wanting me to view him as a stalker looking over my shoulder. Just so I'd understand he was actually waiting to buy his own tickets. He didn't do anything wrong. I just don't like people. I don't like being interrupted when I'm in the middle of a scratcher crisis. And because I was rushed since he was waiting, I forgot to get my PowerBall football ticket.

This was not a quickpick. I had selected the 8 teams I wanted to play. Out of a chart of all 32 teams. It shows the helmets with logos, and a 3-letter abbreviation for the city. Don't you worry about Mrs. HM. She still got a ticket on Sunday morning, out of the machine at 10Box. My picks didn't win anything this week, but the quickpick I got at the Gas Station Chicken Store won $7. 

Anyhoo... I would have preferred a silent stalker, rather than this friendly man. I got my (unsatisfactory) tickets out, and proceeded with my shopping. I didn't wait to see if Mr. Nice Guy got the machine to take his twenty.