The Day Mrs. HM Hoped For A Loser

I buy scratchers every day. Usually, I'm hoping for a winner every time I scratch. But on Monday, I actually hoped for a loser!

I bought tickets out of the machine at the Sis-Town Save A Lot. I don't go there very often. Maybe once a month, or less. I knew that I wanted my favorite ticket, the crossword. And a couple of the $3 picture tickets. When I scanned my winners, I had enough for another $5 ticket. I chose the Monopoly. Not because I've had much success with it. But because it has the potential for a $200 winner. Like when in the game, you pass GO, and collect $200 in fake money.

When I got back to T-Hoe, and was writing on the back so I'd know where I got the tickets, I noticed something odd about my Monopoly.

It was not a whole ticket! It was not torn on the perforation. In the machines at 10Box, you can hear your ticket being torn from the roll when you touch the screen and make your selection. At the Save A Lot, the machine is different. You push a little bar, and the ticket comes out into the tray. As if they are pre-torn on the perforation, and stacked in the machine. You can't select a certain number of tickets. You have to push the bar for each one.

Anyhoo... whether it was actual machine error, or employee error, the predicament remained the same. I would not have a bar code to scan at the bottom of my ticket! Nor the code on the back that a retailer can use if the other bar code is not readable.  That's the one at the top of my ticket back, though it is usually on the bottom of the ticket if it's NOT TORN INCORRECTLY!

Also, the person who got the previous ticket did not have THEIR bar code, because that section of their ticket was attached to mine.

I've had an issue before, a few years ago, where the Christmas ticket was so gummy that I did not have the full bar code to scan, because in trying to clear it with my coin, part of the bar code was obliterated. The Woman Owner at the Gas Station Chicken Store told me she could not redeem my $5 winner back then, because she didn't have a bar code to scan. I mailed that ticket to the lottery office in the state capitol, and in six weeks, I had my $5 winnings. It was a hassle.

Welp. No need to worry. My Monopoly ticket was a loser. I was not particularly disappointed with this result. Oh, and the person with the ticket before mine also had a loser, according to their bar code that I scanned with my phone app.