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The regulars hate to have their routines interrupted

Everything about it has a rhythm: the lists of numbers, the scratchy thumping of the… Everything about it has a rhythm: the lists of numbers, the scratchy thumping of the shuttering green machine, the crumpling of losing tickets, and groans of disgust from losing players. The lottery makes its own music; it has its own jargon.

In a quest to support myself this summer, I took a part-time job at a pharmacy down the street from my house. When I started the job, I had no idea I would be expected to run the lottery machine. Never having played the lottery, I could not attest to its force. I always met the idea of winning something for relatively nothing with scorn, but for regular lottery players, it sometimes seems to be a life force.

People who do not play the lottery often ask me how I can run the machine. They shake their heads and laugh at the concept. But they have a point; the machine is not easy. Its daunting face is as complex as a Pittsburgh traffic grid. When I started to learn the machine, I punched the numbers timidly and often made simple mistakes that caused the lottery’s patrons to snap at me and bark, “get someone else who knows what they’re doing”

Pitt News Staff

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