Hick Fights, for His Right, to FORRRTY!

Hick was incensed Friday afternoon, waving a lottery ticket. He rarely buys scratchers, because he's just not lucky with them. Maybe because he only buys one at a time, so the odds are not with him.

"I stopped to buy a five-dollar lottery ticket, and the gal gave me the wrong one! She gave me a ten-dollar ticket!"

"She can't do that! Lottery is highly regulated!"

"I only gave her five dollars. I said, 'That's not what I wanted! I asked for the Number 16. Not THAT one!' And she said, 'But I gave you a ten-dollar ticket!' And I told her I didn't want it, to give me what I asked for."

"OH! So you didn't TAKE the ten-dollar ticket."

"No. I made her take it back."

Then I saw the ticket Hick was waving around in his fit of pique was a five-dollar ticket, red, the newest release. It's the kind he bought from the guy at his SUS2.5, the thousand-dollar winner.

I was headed to town, and walked past Hick into the kitchen. He was scratching in the living room. Then I heard him holler.

"I got a 5X!"

"Oh. That's good. Especially for YOU!"

"Yeah. It's five times eight!"

"That's $40! Congratulations!"

"It looks like that's my only winner."

"Usually that's it, when you get a multiplier. That's great, on a five-dollar ticket."

I'm happy for Hick. He got it at the School-Turn Casey's. I haven't been there in over a month, because of road construction along that route. It's near the place where Hick goes for his Friday afternoon bull-shooting session with his cronies.

I probably would have forked over five more dollars, and taken the ten-dollar ticket. I hate to make a clerk shove an already-torn-off ticket back into their display, and I don't like to slow down the line. I figure it happens for a reason. But Hick is not a regular player, and does the opposite of what I do. This time it paid off for him, because he would have missed his $40 winner that he asked for.