Thread: misread ticket (adult language)

“Five dollars?”
“Five dollars.”
“Wait, so what the fuck, hold on, what happened? The pot of gold doesn’t mean anything?”
“Nope, just the coins and the diamonds.”
With that, they sank into their seats - a bit further than the full night of hustling around at work had already put them - staring, more spaced out than they’d been after the blunt on the ride home, through the windshield, in that moment forgiving all of its smudges and wiper streaks it’d accrued over three months of winter without a wash, at the small building in the center of the gas station.
Mark, driver, reached into his pocket and withdrew a five dollar bill. “Here, go get two more. Something different this time, nothing like these confusing shits,” he told Jackie, passenger, as he waved one of the losing Pot o’ Golds before tossing it onto the floor of the car, where it joined the hodgepodge of crushed Red Bull cans, empty blunt wrappers, dead cigarette packs and all of the other remnants of his day to day existence he could never seem to find the energy to reach down and toss out.
“C’mon, dude, you can’t go in? They were fuckin’ laughin’ at me, man, I don’t wanna face those fucks again.”
Mark met this contention with a shallow grunt, and then, “Yeah, alright, that’s cool. So what’d she say when you gave it to her anyways?”
“Well I ran in, you saw me, y’know, I was jumping all over the place. I got in the door and yelled to ‘em that I had a thousand dollar winner on me. The people in line all start freakin’ out, trying to get me to let ‘em see it. Everyone’s having fun now, the whole place is electric. I cut to the front of the line and tossed it across the corner at her - it was Deb.”
“Of course, yeah, what’d she say to you?”
“I dunno, she was really calm and shit, it was crazy, y’know, seeing the way everyone was and then she’s just sitting there just kinda whatever about everything.”
“Well you gotta figure she gets to see this kinda shit all the time.”
“True. But yeah, anyways, she just said straight up that she couldn’t cash a ticket for a thousand, that I’d have to mail it or take it to the Lottery office in fuckin’ Walpole or wherever she said. Something about taxes and shit. Then she just kept on goin’ about how that’s how they get ya, and how the government’s always trying to invent new ways to screw people and all that shit, well, y’know how she gets on those tangents about that kinda stuff,” he explained, chuckling.
“Oh of course,” he said, nodding. “So she still scanned it anyways?”
“Yeah, I tossed it at her and I dunno I guess it’s just her natural inclination to run it through the machine, y’know, after working there for as she has.”
“Right. So what happened then?”
“The whole fuckin’ place crowds around the machine. I mean it was pretty cool, y’know, I mean I bet these people’ve never seen a thousand dollars on that screen - I know I never have. So she scans it through and ‘5.00 WINNER’ flashes. The whole place was in shock for like, I dunno, five seconds, then people just started laughing. I just crashed. I think they thought I was just joking the whole time.”
Mark cracked up. “What’d they say when they figured out you weren’t?”
Jackie sat back for a few seconds, putting an effort into picking a recollection through the lazy fog that’d enveloped his thoughts over the ride back to town. A loud sigh, then slowly: “I dunno, the whole thing was a fuckin’ blur. I was just standing there, more crushed than I’ve ever been in my life, y’know? She takes the ticket and holds it in front of me, pointing at the prize description or whatever you wanna call it. She said something like, “Just because the ticket is called Pot of Gold doesn’t mean the pots of gold mean anything,”” he repeated, “then she went on about how the only things that’re worth prizes are the coins and the diamonds. Then she put the ticket on the counter and scratched off the prizes. She held it up again and there was a diamond there, for five bucks.”
Mark, still laughing, “Well, I guess at least we got something out of it. Think of how worse it woulda been if there was nothin’ there at all. So c’mon, go back in and get a couple more. I smell victory.”
Jackie threw up his hands and let them fall deadweight into his lap. “Dude, if you want to, then shit, go ahead. I’m not going anywhere near that fuckin’ door. Not today, not tomorrow, and probably not the day after that. Jesus that was fuckin’ ridiculous.”
“Alright, alright. So you wanna do five two dollars or two five dollars?”
“Who gets to scratch the extra one if we get five twos?”
“I dunno, I guess me since I’m going to get ‘em.”
“Two fives then, whatta you think?”
“Sounds good. Two of the same?”
“Yeah.”
“Alrighty, I’ll be right out,” he said as he sat up in the seat and pushed the door open.
“Go quick.”
“Yessir,” as the door shut. Jackie brought his empty gaze back up to the store, just as Mark was ducking inside.