Frivolity

Thirty three million pounds worth of excuses!

9 years ago
by Naomi
washed lottery tickets, Kettle Mag, Naomi Duffree
Written by Naomi

You know that terrible feeling when your numbers come up on the jackpot lotto, yet you can’t find your ticket? No. Me neither. I’ve never had a jackpot win. But we’ve heard of a few in Worcester who had…or believed they had.

Yet the winner hadn’t washed their ticket, fed it to the dog etc… they had a genuine claim on £33 million.  But what if you had a genuine claim and yet had a ruined ticket? How would you convince Camelot to go ahead and present you with your prize? Here I take a sideways look at what you might need to say. And while we are on the subject of claims – or disclaims – here is a disclaimer about this article. This article is in no sense or purpose written to try and provide a list of excuses to give to lottery companies regarding damaged tickets. This is more of a ‘save yourself the embarrassment of using these excuses’, type piece. You have been warned.

  1. The winning lottery ticket was bought between 6 of us. I thought it was fair to cut it up into equal strips so that no one was tempted to run away with the prize fund.
     
  2. I buried the ticket for safe keeping, once I had checked the numbers. I can assure you they are all correct. I just can’t quite remember where I buried it.
     
  3. I took a photo off it on my phone just after the numbers had been drawn. We were on a night out in the SU bar…I was worried I might lose it later. I did. I also lost my phone.
     
  4. I was checking the numbers on the night by calling them out to my other half. He is a bit heavy handed and used a permanent marker and now we can’t see the actual numbers… Or the barcode as he’s not very accurate. We did win though as otherwise all the numbers wouldn’t be blacked out.

  1. I split with my boy-friend the next day. He must have taken the other half of the ticket as three numbers are missing – along with the barcode. He always was a greedy git.
     
  2. I never throw out my lotto tickets – just in case. I put this week’s winning one in the box with all the others from years gone by. I may be some time looking for it…
     
  3. I don’t have a washing machine so I’m guessing this IS the winning ticket?

  1. There was a deadline for an assignment involving poetry in unusual places. I composed this piece on my winning lotto ticket as I thought it would be lucky. My tutor has it – and I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get it to you.
     
  2. Knowing how tricksy dogs can be when it comes to chewing important things, I popped it in the fish tank to keep it away from the puppy. The numbers have all floated off – but at least it isn’t chewed.
     
  3. After checking the numbers and finding I’d won I put it safely in one of the many library books I had out on loan. Unbelievably I actually returned some on time…and it was in one of those. There is a queue now for that book.

So if you do buy a ticket this week and get lucky – be sure to keep it safe. If you do mislay it, maybe let us know what you would have spent the money on in the comments below. Fingers crossed!!

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