You Won on the Lottery? Go Away.

We are open 24 hours. Why? I have no idea, because we mostly get the freaks and creeps in the middle of the night.

But my point is that many businesses don't open until 8 or 9 a.m.

So, why do people think they can bring a $500 winning lottery ticket in to cash at 6 in the morning?

Awhile ago, I had just started my shift. We had this guy come in that threw his lottery ticket down on the counter and demanded that we pay him the $500 that he just won.

It was 6 a.m., I was not fully awake yet, and we had tons of cranky customers in the store that just wanted to buy their coffee and get to work.

Plus, I didn't have any money in my register to cash this ticket. So I told the man that he would have to come back later and he started getting on my case that since he bought this $1 lottery ticket here, he should be able to cash it there.

That's nice and all that he won, but I couldn't have cared less. I 'politely' explained that we didn't have that kind of money that early in the morning and this was when he decided that he wanted me to call the manager and wake him up to come down and cash his ticket.

So of course I start getting irritated and told him to go somewhere else then. So he kept asking why we wouldn't cash his ticket. I finally told him that if he wanted his ticket cashed so badly, then I would call the police and they could come down and cash his ticket for him. While I'm saying this, I'm picking up the phone dialing the police. (Works every time.)

He looks at me, grabs his ticket from the counter, and flicks me off as he's walking away.

Of course this just angers me more, but it's too early in the morning for me to start swearing at him in front of customers.

Why he couldn't wait a few more hours to cash his ticket? Who knows. All I know is that if you are bringing your big winner in to cash before the sun comes up, then you'd better turn around and go sit your ass in your car for a few hours, because we aren't a bank, and we don't have that kind of money so early in the morning.