Take your time
When you read this, you might think to yourself, “How can you make that mistake?” I didn’t. I just thought that someone instantly went from having a normal day to having the best day of their life. That’s what happens when you recover a lost million-dollar lottery ticket.
According to The Washington Post, Lea Rose Fiega was on her lunch break in March and bought a $30 Diamond Millions scratch-off ticket at the Lucky Stop in Southwick, Massachusetts. On the card, there are 30 diamonds you scratch off to reveal your numbers. Above them are ten dollar sign symbols, which hide the winning numbers. Match any of your numbers to the winning numbers and you win the prize shown. There are also multipliers, instant $100 wins, and five bonus chances should none of your numbers match.
The estimated payout rate is 80.71%.
Fiega quickly scratched off the spaces, saw that she didn’t win, and gave it to the store clerk to throw away before hurrying back to work.
Not all heroes wear capes
Somehow, that ticket sat in the trash for 10 days (guess that receptacle doesn’t get much use) before Abhi Shah, the son of one of the store’s owners, saw it and noticed that not all of the spaces had been scratched off. Fiega really was in a hurry to get back to work. He finished the job to reveal that the lottery ticket was worth $1 million.
Of course, now there was a decision to make.
“We had mixed emotions,” the 30-year-old Shah explained to the Post. “We didn’t sleep for two nights, but I don’t know what happened. My inner soul told me: ‘That’s not right. You know who that person is. You should give that ticket back to them.’ And that’s exactly what I did.”
Fiega was clearly a regular customer and Shah knew where she worked, so he went to surprise her. He told Fiega that his parents wanted to see her, but she was busy and didn’t want to leave. Shah insisted, so she went to the store, where they told her she had won a million smackeroos.
“I was in total disbelief. I cried, I hugged them,” Fiega said.
“I mean, who does that? They’re great people. I am beyond blessed.”
Fiega is giving the Shahs a reward for their kindness. They will also receive $10,000 from the Massachusetts Lottery for selling a winning ticket.
It’s like finding $20 in your winter coat after it was hanging in the closet for half a year. Except that this is $1 million and your coat didn’t make the conscious decision to not keep the money for itself.
So to sum up all the ridiculous twists of fate: Fiega thinks the card is a loser and instead of throwing it out herself, hands it to the clerk, who puts it in a trash can that didn’t need to be emptied for at least a week and a half, the son of the owners somehow saw the ticket after ten days and noticed it still had spots to scratch off, Fiega was such a regular that the Shahs knew her name and where she worked, AND Abhi Shah had high moral character. Phew.
