I have to tell this story to you and it is completely true.
Some hippie college kids came into the gas station the other weekend. They were headed to some stoner music festival in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom. Three guys. They had their long hair and sandals.
They bought five dollars in gas and paid in dimes.
They searched among themselves for another five dollars so that they would be able to buy a scratch-off lottery ticket. I overheard that they needed more money for the trip. They wanted to take a gamble...
They asked me to pick them "a winning ticket."
Feeling playful, I said, "I have the power to do that." I waved my hand around in front of the ticket display and thrust it at one of games. I said, "This is your winning ticket." I handed it to them.
They went to the other counter and huddled around and scratched some of it off. It was a poker game where you get twenty hands, or tries, or whatever. I sauntered over there because they were cute and I cleaned the counter nearby.
One of them said, "Hey. Let's have this guy play one." They all agreed, so they gave me the nickel and the ticket. They had scratched off ten of twenty hands. It was my turn. Hand number eleven. I scratched it off and they won twenty dollars.
They all freaked.
So I ran the ticket through the reader and keyed in the validation code and gave them their money. ...For their trip to stoner land.
And they gave me five bucks.
This all was so cool in so many ways.
I'll let someone else figure the odds, but it seems entertainingly unlikely.
