Well, You’re Definitely Not Winning THAT Lottery

I work an overnight shift at the gas station. I have a bunch of cleaning tasks that only get done at night, so I don’t stay at the register unless there’s a customer ready to check out.

The register counter is set up as an oblong island in the middle of the sales floor. The lottery display is at the tail end, opposite of where I can easily see it, with a snack cake stand in front of it, so it’s not rare for people to stand there indecisively for a moment.

A guy who’s been browsing is ready, so I come around.

His jacket is open and, flopping about in plain sight is our largest and most expensive scratch-off ticket sticking out of his inside pocket. It wasn’t there earlier.

I ring him up.

Me: “…and the lottery ticket?”

He plays dumb but “honest”.

Me: “Sir, lottery tickets are not self-serve. That’s why the accessible side of the display bins faces the employee side, not the customer side.”

Customer: “Oh, I didn’t know.”

And then, suddenly, he didn’t have enough money on him, but he had a $50 bill outside in the car and he’d be “right back”. He went ahead and paid for the other stuff he’d brought to the register and left.

He never came back. Thankfully, I got the ticket back from him the second I pointed out they weren’t self-serve.