Collecting the Lottery Winnings
“I’d like to cash in forty thousand tickets in sixth prize, five hundred in fifth, fifty in fourth, ten in third, two in second, and one first-prize ticket.”
“······.”
Even after I spoke, the woman at the counter kept the same indifferent look on her face.
She gave me a once-over, then let out a snort.
“Oh, how cute.”
The middle-aged clerk chewed her gum noisily as her eyes slid over me from head to toe.
“I honestly can’t make sense of you. Are you trying to tell me a joke? I never get the timing with Eastern jokes. So, where exactly am I supposed to laugh? At the part where you say you brought in tens of thousands of lottery tickets? You’re telling me you scratched off millions of tickets just for that? Where’s the punchline, sweetie?”
The woman waved a hand dismissively, her gum snapping wetly between her teeth.
“I’m busy, so just go away. Anything under a hundred dollars, you can claim at the retail shop. No need to come all the way to headquarters next time.”
Her gaze flicked briefly to my worn-out jeans and scuffed sneakers before returning to her place.
“Or do you want me to point you to the nearest lottery retailer? Oh, and if reading English is hard, I can even draw you a picture map.”
There was naked contempt in the way she spoke, every word chewed over with her gum.
Grace raised her eyebrows and started to step forward, but I stopped her with a small gesture.
“There’s no need to waste time teaching this one how to be a better person. We’re just here to collect the money.”
I picked up the box I’d set under the counter and tipped it over.
Rattle-rattle-rattle!
Bundles of lottery tickets bound with rubber bands spilled across the counter shelf.
The clerk’s chewing stopped dead when the mountain of forty thousand sixth-prize tickets began to pile up.
“W-what the hell is this······?”
I set down the second box.
On its side, it read 5th Prize.
“Next is five hundred fifth-prize tickets.”
The silver-coated tickets cascaded down in a glittering torrent and landed on top of the first pile.
The clerk’s eyes began to widen, wider and wider, until they looked close to splitting.
The third box held fourth-prize, third-prize, and second-prize tickets.
“Fifty fourth-prize tickets, ten third-prize tickets, and two second-prize tickets.”
The counter was now completely buried under lottery slips.
The rude clerk stared dumbly at the paper mountain in front of her.
“W-what, what is all this? What the hell is this?”
“Exactly what I said. Forty thousand sixth-prize tickets, five hundred fifth-prize tickets······ We already sorted everything for you, so all you have to do is count.”
The clerk looked completely dazed.
She stared back and forth between me and Grace, her expression empty as if her soul had left her body.
“U-uh······ customer. You scratched all of these? The two of you?”
With trembling fingers, she picked up one of the bundles.
···Tick!
As she released the rubber band, dozens of winning tickets fanned out like a deck of cards.
The clerk muttered, still stunned, “W-wait a second. I’ve never seen one person win this much at once before······ I-I need to check whether this is even legal.”
Then Grace said, each word crisp and precise, “There’s no issue. Under Massachusetts law as of 1992, if you look at General Laws, Chapter 10, the lottery provisions governing tickets issued in 1990 do not contain any regulation limiting how many tickets an individual may purchase. Naturally, that also applies to collecting the winnings. Retailers may only sell ten tickets per person at a time, but if you go to multiple retailers and buy them across several visits, there’s no problem. At the federal level, lotteries fall under state jurisdiction, so there’s no separate regulation. All that matters is that withholding tax is handled properly. Our lawyer already reviewed all of this, so there’s no need for further confirmation.”
“······.”
The clerk stared up at Grace, speechless.
The employee beside her pulled a thick regulations manual out of a drawer.
He flipped through it for a while, scanning the page, then nodded.
“······She’s right. There’s no quantity limit.”
“Hah, but the smaller prizes······ those take some time to pay out. Even entering them into the system takes a full day······.”
Grace stepped forward.
“Take your time with that. Let’s start by cashing in the first prize, then.”
She took a single carefully preserved ticket from her inner pocket and slapped it down in front of the clerk.
Bang!
Under the fluorescent lights, two star symbols and the bold, sharply printed number beneath them flashed into view.
$8,000,000
The clerk’s eyes widened until it seemed they could widen no further.
She sucked in a breath, choked on it, and then let out a strangled cry.
“E-eight million dollars?!”
The shout shattered the silence and tore through the entire office.
The clacking of typewriters and the murmur of phone calls stopped all at once.
Every head in the office turned toward us.
“What? Eight million dollars?”
“Who are those students? Don’t tell me they hit first prize?”
“No way. They finally showed up?”
The office erupted in an instant, buzzing like a kicked hornet’s nest.
Someone shot up and ran into the inner office, and a moment later the door banged open.
A white man with a heavy build, a shiny bald head, and a crooked tie came rushing out in a panic—the department manager.
“What’s going on? First prize? Is that true?”
The employees abandoned their work and flooded toward the counter.
They looked back and forth between me, Grace, and the tickets on the table with expressions of awe, envy, and naked curiosity.
Grace took hold of my arm lightly.
Her face was proud and composed, but she couldn’t hide the victorious smile spreading at the corners of her mouth.
“Please wait a moment, customer. I’m going to verify it.”
The department manager took the ticket himself.
First, he held it up to the fluorescent light to check the watermark.
Then came the ultraviolet lamp.
When he passed the UV light over the ticket, hidden security patterns glowed bluish green where the naked eye had seen nothing.
He tilted the ticket, and the hologram strip—the silver band—shimmered in rainbow colors.
The manager scanned the barcode on the back.
Beep-!
A green check mark appeared on the monitor.
[Valid lottery ticket - Serial No.: MA-PWR-36-0847291]
“The serial is confirmed······ now I need to verify it against headquarters’ system. One moment.”
The manager began typing.
Every eye in the office fixed on his monitor.
Three seconds later, a new window appeared on the screen.
★ JACKPOT WINNER VERIFIED ★
- Prize: $8,000,000
- Issued by: Massachusetts State Lottery Commission
- Issue Date: October 14, 1992
- Retailer: Lucky Seven, Worcester
The department manager drew in a long breath.
“F-finally, we just need to verify your ID.”
Grace and I each handed over our student IDs and passports.
With shaking hands, the manager compared the documents.
Name, date of birth, photograph—naturally, everything matched.
He slowly lifted his head.
Beads of sweat had formed along his forehead.
“······It’s authentic. Congratulations to you both.”
A brief silence settled over the office.
And then, one by one, applause broke out from every corner.
The bald manager kept wiping his sweat-drenched forehead with a handkerchief while punching numbers into a calculator.
His thick fingers trembled with excitement each time they hit a key.
“Hahaha, congratulations, truly, sincerely congratulations! A total jackpot of $8.6 million! Though, of course, we do have to withhold 31% federal tax and 5% Massachusetts state tax. You were aware of that, right?”
Taxes alone came to $3,096,000.
That was like watching an entire year’s net profit from a solid mid-sized company vanish into the tax office.
“Your net payout after tax comes to about $5.504 million! Add that to the $681,480 from the smaller prizes you brought in earlier, and······.”
The manager tapped the calculator once more, then set his pen to the check paper.
- Commonwealth of Massachusetts
- Pay to the order of: LEE, SANHA & FAIRFAX, GRACE
- $6,185,480
- Six million one hundred eighty-five thousand four hundred eighty dollars
The thing in my hand, and in Grace’s, was a state-issued check bearing the impossible figure of $6.18 million.
Before the ink on the check had even dried, the manager put on his sales smile and handed over a business card.
“One moment, customer. Along with your winnings, I’d like to introduce you to the VIP asset management program run by our affiliated Bank of Boston. Sudden windfalls need proper management. If you sign up now, we can offer a special interest rate······.”
I cut him off firmly.
“I appreciate the thought, but I’ve already decided where the funds will be deposited.”
“Ah, are you perhaps considering another commercial bank? Our terms are top of the industry······”
“It’s somewhere far more reliable than a bank. Let’s go, Grace.”
I took the check and stood.
Grace followed, draping her coat over her shoulders with elegant precision.
But she didn’t just walk out.
“Well, if things had gone normally, I might have deposited the winnings at the bank you mentioned······”
At her words, the manager perked up.
But then—
“It’s hard to trust the word of someone who hands out first-prize winnings so carelessly at a counter like this.”
“What? N-no! No! First-prize winners are supposed to be guided to the VVIP room according to procedure, but I was told that the customer specifically wanted to handle things at the counter······ that’s what I was informed······”
The manager’s eyes shifted to the same unfriendly clerk from earlier.
Grace lifted one shoulder.
“There’s no way. That very kind lady over there told us so herself. That we didn’t need to come to headquarters. That we should just go to the nearest lottery retailer and claim our winnings there.”
“T-that······”
“Thanks to her, the decision became much easier. I was debating where to deposit the $5.72 million, but after that first impression······.”
Grace gave a small shrug.
“I don’t trust this place. I’ll look somewhere else. I suppose I’ll just go to the nearest one, like she advised.”
The manager’s face drained white.
“N-no, that’s not—it is, I mean, we sincerely apologize for the shortcomings in our staff training······!”
He scrambled into our path, blocking us and begging.
“Please give us another chance and we promise you the best service! We can raise the interest rate, too—we can raise it even more!”
“I’m sorry, but first impressions matter. As you know······ you can’t have the same first experience twice.”
“Please! If you’d just think about it one more time······!”
Leaving the manager’s pleas behind us, we opened the office door and stepped out.
Thud—thud—thud—thud—
By the time we reached the elevator at the end of the hallway, a thunderous shout exploded from behind the glass doors.
“Are you insane?! You lost a $6.18 million customer because of your gum-chewing attitude! Write a report right this secooooond!”
Grace giggled and pressed the elevator button.
“I feel better now.”
“So do I.”
I found myself smiling as well.
Truthfully, whether that clerk had been rude or polite, I wouldn’t have deposited our lottery winnings in this bank anyway.
From the very beginning, the place that would take our money wasn’t some ordinary commercial bank.
It was the Harvard Endowment.
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