You get off work and worm your way through a gale of rush-hour traffic that would scare Richard Petty up a tree. It’s time to fill up the gas tank, so you pull into the nearest convenience store that doesn’t have its own police tape and body outline chalk dispensers in the parking lot. 

Once a gas station is chosen, it’s time for Las Vegas mode. After trying multiple pumps that either won’t read your credit card or produce only runny oatmeal, the third nozzle you try yields gas. Since it’s been a rough week (even though it’s only Tuesday), you decide to go inside the store to buy a can of the hard stuff.

By the hard stuff, of course, I mean Coca-Cola. Of course, it’s impossible to get a normal-size can of carbonated sugar water. In most gas stations now, a can of soda is larger than a barrel of oil. After two good swigs I’m done with it. Usually, I’ll drive to Hardy Bridge and pour the remaining gallons of soda over the bridge just to see the river rise.

Once I get my giant can of Coke onto a hand dolly and get in line at the cash register, I find myself behind a little lady in her early 70s. She’s having a bit of an issue with the cashier, which doesn’t shock me at all. There’s now 97 ways to pay for a pack of Nabs (cash, credit card, ApplePay, PayPal, Venmo, Wampum) and if the internet is down you may have to set up base camp under the barely legal bottles of 24-hour energy.

Around minute three, I realized it wasn’t the cashier’s fault. The customer was asking dozens of questions about lottery tickets, which instantly depleted my patience.

Customer: “What’s the payout on the MegaMillion?”

Cashier: “171 million. Would you like one?”

Customer: “Nah. I thought it had gone higher than that.”

At this point, I couldn’t help myself.

“Are you saying $171 million isn’t enough? What would it take for you to buy one?”

“Well, if it was $173 million I’d probably buy one,” she said.

“So $171 million…you’ve got that in the cushions of your couch, right?”

By now the line of customers waiting for this lady to finish her lottery ticket purchase was out the door, across the parking lot, and midway of U.S. 70. Eventually, a State Trooper positioned himself between a display of Snoop Dogg potato chips and Jarritos sodas to disperse the traffic jam that ran from the beer cooler, around the Little Debbie After Hours display, and coiled around the Bojangle’s across the highway.

To listen to live and archived broadcasts of The Bryan Hanks Show with Jon Dawson and Jonathan Massey, visit www.BryanHanks.com.

Once the store manager and I had finished loading my can of soda into the trunk, I attempted to leave the gas station, but there was a vehicle blocking the driveway. Who was it? The little lady who just spent seven minutes purchasing one lottery ticket. She’d stopped driving to scratch off her lottery ticket. 

Eventually, it dawned on her that she hadn’t won. She pulled out of the gas station and headed toward Little Baltimore, where she promptly took out a mailbox on the left-hand side of the road. This frightened her, which triggered an overreaction, which then led to her tapping a mailbox on the other side of the road. Ironically, the only box left standing was for the local newspaper.

Jon Dawson’s band Third of Never has released a new single. View the video above or download the track at www.thirdofnever.bandcamp.com.

After sideswiping the second mailbox, she gunned it and disappeared into the sunset. Although I detest hooliganism, I admired her gusto. She displayed careless, reckless behavior thats usually monopolized by the young. Her spirit so inspired me that I headed back to the gas station to buy a lottery ticket, taking out two newspaper boxes for good measure.

Jon Dawson’s books are available at www.JonDawson.com

Jon Dawson’s music can be purchased (not stolen) at www.343Collective.com