Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Today I Accidentally Purchased $10 in Powerball Tickets

Today I decided to throw some money in the garbage and buy a Powerball ticket. You may only have a 1 in 294,000,000 chance at winning per ticket purchased but you have zero chance if you buy no ticket. I need 1.5 billion dollars in my life. For real. I got to the store and a very slow old woman was using the machine and a special needs employee on a ladder was in front of the other machine. He was washing the top of it. Why today, sir? Why today?

I have never purchased a lottery ticket before so I didn't know that I had to have cash. This employee was just talking my ear off while I'm waiting in line. ("The thumbprint scanner on the time clock is a piece of crap. It gives a real, real hard time to the lady who works in floral every time she clocks in. HAHAHA! Isn't that a riot?") I was gracious, I replied and smiled. The universe was making me earn this damn lottery ticket. Finally I got to the machine and realized I was going to have to get cash in order to buy a ticket and I had just wasted all of my time and patience. Thanks, Ladder Man.

I told Josie that we were going to get a doughnut before we left for the store anyway so I went to the doughnut case and let her pick one out. I was feeling fancy so I got one too. We checked out and got cash back at the register. Cash in-hand, I went back to the Powerball machine to try and buy my ticket without looking like a total idiot because I literally have no idea what I'm doing. 

I put the $10 bill in there thinking that I would buy two tickets and then get the rest of my money back. I got my first ticket! I'm thinking "Fun! Just one more ticket and then I'm outta here! Doughnut, here I come!"

Now picture this: To my left 15 feet away is "playland" where you can leave your child under the care of a  state licensed employee for an hour while you shop. There's a bracelet system and everything so it's very safe. Playland isn't inherently bad, I just don't like the kids of strangers touching my kids. The kids always ask to go in there and I tell them no "because of germs." Every time. I have a major fear of vomit called emetophopia. I do not like to vomit and more than that, I really do not like to see vomit. It makes me very angry and I get panic attacks if I am around it. I can't control this. My kids don't get to go to indoor play zones. Just call me "Mom of the Year."

Anyway, Powerball ticket numero uno was in my hand and I was going in for the second one when I heard the sound of water being poured onto the floor. I looked to my left and an approximately five-year-old child is standing there in front of mother-flipping-playland puking all over the floor. Just puking and puking and puking. 

He was opening his stupid mouth and just letting it pour out onto the floor and his stupid mom wasn't even trying to catch it or anything. I heard her say "oh my." That's all. I wanted to throat punch her. There were literally THOUSANDS of plastic bags within mere feet of this woman and she just allowed him to do his best impression of a human water pump. Puke. Puke. Puke. "Oh my..." Being a full-on crazy person, I started sweating profusely and having a massive panic attack. The shakes took over. I had no idea how to get my money out of the friggin machine and so I began rapidly hitting the button to get whatever the amount of tickets $10 buys in my hand because I want to get the f&%@ out of there. (Five. It was five Powerball tickets.) I also broke my New Year's resolution to swear less. I said all of the bad words. All of them. The smell hit me and I was at my state of full-panic. My throat started to burn form the stench of my actual worst fear and I was struggling not to gag.

I never thought that my day would involve accidentally purchasing $10 worth of Powerball tickets as clumsily as possible while a child near me repeatedly vomited on the floor of the grocery store with no parental intervention whatsoever. As I was turning to leave the scene, this hulking country boy in full-body camo was standing in my way. His jaw was slack as he stared openly at this child who was standing in a grocery store and doing a live performance art piece in which he impersonated an Artesian well. "That kid is throwing up," he astutely pointed out to me. "Yes he is," I said. "He started as soon as I bought my Powerball tickets. You think it's a bad omen?" I was laughing a little too fast and at a pitch so high that I'm not comfortable discussing at this time. I was shaking like a nervous, two-pound poodle when the door bell has been rung.  

He looked at me and said "YUP!" 

I threw my doughnut in the trash on the way out.

And that, friends, is the story of how I bought my first lottery ticket.