8/16: Lottery People, A Different Breed (Part II)
A few days ago I was talking about Lottery People and how they are different from you and me. To recap, there are two basic types of Lottery People: Those that play games like Powerball and those that go the scratch-off-and-win route. In my recent entry I talked about the “numbers” addicts, and said that for as pathetic as these people are the scratch-off zombies are worse.
Now trying to determine which faction of Lottery People are worse is like trying to decide if you would rather encounter a bunch of black people or Mexicans in a dark alley with $100 in your hand; it usually comes down to one’s personal experiences. While the “Powerball” Lottery People have annoyed me more often during my time working at the Quickie Mart, the “Instant Win” Lottery People have produced more memorable encounters. There’s one that tops them all, however, and it’s a wonder I didn’t get fired from this one.
It started off innocently enough. This middle-aged chick came in and bought a bunch of $2 instant-win tickets. She seemed harmless. Not only did she come at a time when the store wasn’t busy, but also she went to a corner of the store to do her scratching. Many times Instant Win Lottery People just stay at the register and muck up the counter with that scratch-off residue. However, about 10 minutes later she came up to me and said that the one lottery ticket was “defective” and wanted a new one. Whenever a cashier receives a winning instant lottery ticket he or she has to first scan the ticket in the lottery machine. The machine will then ask for a three-digit code that is found on the instant-win ticket. It is only then when a payout is issued. If the three numbers aren’t punched in, there’s no cash payout. (This was back 10 years ago, so I’m not sure if the same process has to be performed.) The issue this woman had was that when she scratched the shit out of her cards she was erasing this three-digit code, too, making her tickets void.
There was a problem with this woman’s request. One of the first things I was taught at the Quickie Mart was NEVER to exchange a used lottery ticket. Now when you’re at a dead-end job you have “rules” that are commonly broken in the name of shutting up whining customers or something of that ilk. Then there are those rules that you are not allowed to bend under any circumstances. Anything dealing with the Pennsylvania lottery fell under the latter. I told this woman that I couldn’t take her “defective” ticket and give her a new one. She started getting pissy with me and whipped out the old, “Well the other guy who works here gave me new tickets,” to which I replied, “I’m not that other guy. And the other guy wasn’t supposed to do that.” This bitch then took out a pen from her purse and demanded to know what my name is, even though my nametag was right in front of her face. I responded by grabbing a writing utensil of my own and asking for her name and phone number. When she asked why I said, “So when you tell your lies to my manager about me I can call you on your line of bullshit.” I never got a number. And she did end up calling my manager. It turns out the “other guy” she had referred to was the boss’s husband.
While I’m talking about Instant Win Lottery People, here is my second most memorable moment. It was Christmas Day 1996 and our lottery machine was down. Now once again one of our “never break under any circumstances” rules was that when the lottery machine goes down you don’t pay out any tickets or sell any non-scratch tickets. Well of course because there are plenty of lazy people out there who give out lottery tickets as presents, I turned away quite a few customers with winning scratch-off tickets. This one guy threw a fucking fit over not being able to get his $1 prize. I told him that the computer system is down and there is nothing I can do. He then whipped out the old, “What’s the big deal? It’s only a $1 ticket,” to which I replied, “Well if it’s only a $1 payout, then what’s the big deal of waiting for when I am permitted to accept the ticket?” He then started to storm out and said those famous words every cashier has heard a million times: “I’m never coming back here again.” This prompted my co-worker at the other register to mutter out “oooooo.” The customer was half-way out the door, stopped, turned back around and yelled, “OK, who said 'OOOOOO'?” My co-worker put his head down and the idiot customer walked up to him and said, “What’s your name?” and looked at his nametag. “Derrick. I’ll remember that name, Derrick.” By this time I was biting down on my tongue so hard that if I had put any more pressure on it I would have tasted blood. I looked at Derrick and replied, “Good job. Now I’m going to have to laugh out loud at this guy while he’s still here,” and began to do just that. This sparked a chain reaction with the other customers in the store. When it was all said and done about a dozen people in the store laughed this guy right out of the place. I don’t know if he ever called to complain about Derrick.
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