The Invisible Monster

I stood there, waiting patiently. I knew that my time to be slow was coming. I wasn't about to tempt the fates by being hypocritical. I grabbed the weekly flyer and slowly perused through it. Nothing about Fred Meyer screamed readable, but it was enough to distract me from the unbelievable slow process of returning a kitchen timer that was going on in front of me.

My anticipation swelled as I felt the impatience of the partner of the soon-to-be former kitchen timer owner grow. Even he felt it was an unusually long time to get back a few bucks. I concentrated harder on the glossy pages filled with useless junk.

Finally, the man left with the lowest sale price in his pocket. I think it was seven bucks. I casually walked to the counter and asked to redeem the powerball ticket. I made it a point to make sure the bills were small enough to feed back into the ticket machine.

Again I waited. People tried to force the machine to take their crumpled tens and twenties. The machine continued to reject them, as if to say, "You ain't gonna win, sucka. Take your shitty money and buy you a nice flower or something." I refused to be impatient. I had decided to wait until 5:15, only 45 minutes before the machine shut down for the nightly drawing. Because of the insistence of the people in front of me, the line of the people behind me grew.

Finally it was my turn. I held the five twenties in my hand and silently prayed to the lottery gods to accept my bill without issue. I was going to take a while and I didn't want the mob to become an angry one.

The first bill slid in effortlessly. I began the monotonous process of pressing Powerball, No, $5, 1. Those were the answers that corresponded to the questions posed by the lottery machine: which game, power play, dollars per draw, and how many drawings, respectively.

Because I could only print out a five dollar ticket at a time, the process was a little slow. I became a machine. Twenty dollar bill, sequence of buttons four times, repeat.

Again, I felt the impatience behind me growing. I refused to look back because I didn't want to acknowledge their shifting and silent groaning. I knew I was being a little obnoxious, but I wasn't going to step aside for all the people to go and risk not getting my tickets. Then I would have the ire of the powerball pool to answer to.

Each of the next three bills slid in effortlessly as well. Sometime during my fourth twenty, I thought I heard the voice of a woman behind me saying, "Come on!" But it might have been the paranoia talking at that point. I started to relax as I ignored the swell of impatience growing behind me. I only had one more twenty left.

But the machine spit it back out. I pleaded silently for the bill to go in. I tried every direction, but the machine was angry with me. At that point, I would normally leave the line to get a new twenty, but I knew that my time at the machine had added to the line that had formed while I was waiting patiently. Unfortunately, the people behind me weren't so patient.

Refusing to acknowledge that there might be a problem, I continued to ask the machine to accept my bill. I tried to stand taller, to exude a confidence that I didn't give a shit, but I was crumbling. Finally a man walked up and switched twenties with me. The machine was fooled by this action and graciously accepted it. Four more time I went through my button pushing ritual and then gathered up my tickets.

I then meekly turned around, trying to find the kind man and said to him and to the crowd in general, "Thank you."

I knew why I was thanking the man, but I don't know why I was thanking the line. For not killing me and taking my tickets? For not tar and feathering me? For not booing me out of the line? For only muttering their words of impatience?

In any event, I walked away with 100 entries for the 300 million (remember to say that with your pinky at the corner of your mouth) dollar jackpot. Maybe my next entry will be as a lady of leisure (say it leh-zhur). Let's all hope!