“Hi, I…umm…just knocked over the Christmas tree in the bakery aisle and the manager said to have you call headquarters and, um, see what the charges would be.” Geez, why did I even walk over here? I could have just kept the cart moving and strolled out the door to my car. But I was a worrywart. I knew I’d always be looking over my shoulder—waiting to get arrested for my hit and run of the Christmas tree.

“Yeah,” the woman behind the counter pursed her lips. “I heard the crash. Someone told me some fool had knocked down the Christmas tree. What’s your name?”

Wow, ‘some fool’ had knocked down the tree?” She was pretty rude. I studied her name tag—Verna Trout.

“Your name?” she asked again.

I debated for just a second about giving Verna a fake name, but decided against it. “Amy Bowen.”

“May I have your license, please?”

“Geez,” I groaned as I pulled it out of my wallet. Was I going to be arrested right here in Foodies Market and booked? Would I be spending the holidays in a jail cell? “Here you go,” I handed it over to her. With my license in hand, she stepped away from the counter to the phone. As she dialed what I presumed to be headquarters, I glanced down at the case on the counter. It was filled with dozens of colorful lottery tickets promising everything from cash to vacations. Boy, I could sure use cash, and who wouldn’t want a vacation? But lotteries were such a waste of money. I mean, what were the odds? I looked over at Verna and she frowned at me as she talked on the phone. I bit my lip. This could be really bad. After a few more minutes, she hung up and walked back over to me.

“Here’s your license back.”

“Thanks,” I said, slipping it into my wallet. I may as well get this over with. What kind of price were they going to try and stick me with? “So, what do I owe?”

She smiled at me. “You lucked out. Management said to apologize to you for your inconvenience. And they would like to give you a twenty dollar gift card for your trouble.”

“Really? I mean…really…that sounds good.” I didn’t owe anything plus I was going to get a gift card? This had turned out better than I expected. And Verna seemed nice after all. I guess I had been kind of a fool to not look where I was going.

She pulled a gift card from a stack of them next to the register and ran it through the machine. “It’s activated. This has twenty dollars on it now. Thank you for shopping at Foodies Market.”

“Wow, I can’t believe it.” I said as I took the card from her. Just minutes ago I thought I was going to have to drain my bank account to pay for ornaments and bakery items, and now I was being handed a gift card.

“It must be your lucky day,” she chuckled. “You should buy a lottery ticket.” She pointed to the colorful tickets in the case.

“Ha! No way, I hate wasting money.”

“We had a big winner here recently. Sometimes you just have to take a chance.”

“I’ll pass!” I turned to go. Lotteries were such a waste. But then a thought flashed through my brain. What if I did win? What if I won enough cash that I could quit my job and travel? Heck, even winning a small amount would make my life easier. What if today was my lucky day?

“Alright, then,” Verna said. “You have a great day, and thanks again for shopping at Foodies.”

I turned back to her. “You know, I think I will take one of your ten dollar lottery tickets after all.” Normally I was too frugal to waste money on the lottery, but something inside me just said to go for it, and the gift card had been free after all. Plus, if I spent ten dollars, I would still have ten left.

“Which ticket do you want?”

“Hmmm…” I never played the lottery and didn’t know anything about the odds on the tickets. She looked at me expectantly.

“We have a lot of ten dollar tickets.”

“Just…um…surprise me. Please give me a ticket where I can win something really good.” I handed over the gift card.

“Here you go!” Verna said, plucking a ticket from the case. She swiped the gift card through the cash register. “You have ten dollars left on the card.” She handed me the card along with the ticket, “…and one surprise ten dollar ticket. I hope it’s a winner!”

“Me too!” I said, barely glancing at it as I popped it in the front of my binder. “Thanks so much!” I left the counter and pushed my cart back towards the bakery section of the store. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Merv scowling as he and a worker swept up the Christmas tree mess I’d made. I gulped and made a quick detour into the potato chip aisle. With the extra ten-dollar gift card in my purse and all of my coupons, I was ready to finally start my grocery shopping, and Crispers chips were high on the list. I was planning to snag some bargains!

~ * ~

“Wow!” Cat said, pulling several boxes of oats out of the bag. “How much did you say you spent?”

“Forty-five dollars and sixty-seven cents,” I said proudly, reading from the receipt. “But the real total was one hundred and twelve dollars and three cents, plus I have that app on my phone that will save me a few dollars more. It gives me cash back when I buy certain products and upload a picture of this.” I waved the receipt at her.

“I know, you told me about it before.” Cat grinned as she picked up one of the ten toothbrushes I’d purchased. “You bought a lot of toothbrushes.”

“How many teeth do we each have?” Kristi asked, laughing.

“Well, yeah, it may seem like a lot,” I replied defensively, “but toothbrushes don’t go bad. And besides, they were on sale, and with the coupons I ended up paying only twenty-seven cents per brush. Now how often can you buy a toothbrush for twenty-seven cents?”

“Never,” Kristi said, shaking her head. “And seriously, I don’t know how you do it? I go to the grocery store and it seems like no matter how tiny my list is I end up spending a ton.”

Cat nodded. “That’s because you go in needing two items and come out with twenty or more. Remember that time we ran out of toilet paper and you said you would pick some up and you came home with sugar cookies, hot cocoa mix, and marshmallows?”

“Well,” Kristi replied, “I saw it on a display table and I got a craving.”

“Uh huh, but you forgot the toilet paper,” Cat snickered. “But yeah, Amy, you sure do manage to keep our food bill down.”

“The magic is right here,” I tapped the binder on the table. “Like today, Foodies had a super sale on Crispers chips. I had my coupons with me, so I was able to get an extra discount, and… ”

I looked at Cat and Kristi, who were both grinning at me and rolling their eyes. They knew I could talk coupons all day long. “You don’t really want to know.”

“Yes, we do,” Cat said, trying her best to sound serious. “We want to know the magic you speak of.” She flipped open the binder. “Hey, what’s this?” She pointed to the front page of the binder. “Now that’s a pretty hot looking dude.”

“Wha…” I glanced over her shoulder. “Oh, I forgot I bought a lottery ticket.”

“You bought a lottery ticket? Now that’s different,” Cat puckered her lips.

“Well, I was feeling lucky. I, uh, knocked over a tree at the store and instead of making me pay for the damage they gave me a gift card. I figured it would be nice to win some cash or maybe a trip…”

“So what do you win with this one?” Cat pulled the card out from the binder and studied it. “Hmmm…it says ‘Get three of the same shifter symbols in a horizontal or vertical row; win that shifter. Get three heart symbols, win your choice of lion, wolf, tiger, or bear shifter. Get a 2X symbol, win double the prize shown for that symbol.’” She looked up at me, a wide smile on her face. “It sounds like you win a shifter!”

“What? Let me see that!” I yanked the card away from Cat and read the rules. “There has to be some cash involved.”

Kristi laughed. “It doesn’t sound like it.”

“That sucks. I can’t believe that clerk at the store—Verna picked this one out for me. What a bitch,” I groaned. “I’m taking this ticket back tomorrow.”

Cat shook her head. “I don’t think lottery tickets are returnable, so you may as well scratch it!”