Conspiracy of Dunces

The lottery is wonderfully pathetic. It's like hitch-hiking: inevitably a car slows, and you end up in the back seat of an old convertible, bouncing down some rural route as a bottle is passed around. You have to take a sip, out of common courtesy, though to do so is to help empty the bottle of its suspect liquid, is to put your hand - figuratively at least, on the wheel of this old Electra 88, is to be at least partly responsible for any and all of the calamities that will surely follow.
Mary loves the Bingo scratch game: it's just a two-dollar ticket, but it takes a good five minutes to work your way through each of the four mini-games on each ticket, so it has more of the pharmacologic effect that she is looking for.
She gets a batch or two every week, and whittles them down to their truth and, generally, places the winners on the 'glass cabinet' and tosses the others away.
So the other day I grabbed the single ticket that was up there - on my way out to run a few errands, not knowing how much she had won, but assuming that particular ticket a winner that I could exchange for a few more of the same. In that way a two dollar winner is like a case of empties: its a down payment on another case of beer.
Later that afternoon, after Patrick's guitar lesson, I stopped by the convenience store on South Street and, with Patrick waiting in the car, went into claim Mary's winnings. As I handed the clerk - an older, heavy-set woman in her fifties (God its still hard to accept that these older people are, in fact, about my age) I remarked to her that I didn't know if I had won $2, or $2 million. Looking quickly at the ticket she remarked, 'its not a winner'. Then she put the ticket on the counter in front of her, off to the side where I couldn't see it. She then added -without any prompt from me, that if she were to check it on the machine, and it wasn't a winner, it would cause the machine to crash. I was surprised, but I accepted her assertion, and even purchased another set of tickets before driving home.
Later that evening I remarked to Mary that the ticket on the glass cabinet had not been a winner. But she was adamant that it had been, for $15. Thinking back to my encounter with the clerk, I suddenly realized that I had set myself up for a rip-off. I had first asserted I didn't really know what I had won, and then I had not asked for the unsigned ticket back (they are supposed to give you the ticket). The clerk never scanned it. And she didn't trash it. It was clear to me that this was something she probably does all the time, and that it could net her hundreds of dollars a week.
I called the Lottery and spoke with them, but did not lodge a specific complaint. Rather I decided to devise my own sting. I plan to take a small winning Bingo ticket back to this same clerk, make essentially the same 'garsh I'm stupid' comments, and see how she proceeds. I have taken the precaution of scanning the ticket in question (front and back) and also scratching it to create the impression that it may be a big winner (instead of just a $5 dollar winner). If she takes the bait, I am going to bring in the federales. If she doesn't..
I hate the pettiness of this. I hate giving any time to this. The lottery is best when it is an ephemeral diversion.

BTW, Clare is here, staying with us for a week. She is visiting for a week, so she can see her father. And BTW2, I did a little research into kilt purchase and rental: there seems to be no way that you could rent the Clan Ranald kilt in the US, and if you purchased one it would cost in the vicinity of $1000 (for all the parts). My initial suggestion is that you try to find a place that has the gray mourning suit variety of dress kilt (and jacket)(which is, I think, the best looking set up anyway) and that you supplement that rental with an authentic Clan Ranald kilt pin and ribbon.