Meet the Lady Whose Act of Kindness May Have Cost Her a Half Billion Dollars

Meet the lady who may have given 84 year old Gloria Mackenzie a half billion dollars.   Gloria Mackenzie won that big Powerball jackpot a few weeks ago.   She bought a quick pick at the Publix Grocery store in Zephyrhills, Florida, after cutting in front of 34 year old Mindy Crandell. 

It’s Okay, Mindy let her, and Miss Gloria did thank Mindy when she went to pick up her money.   In a statement read by a Florida lottery,  Miss Gloria said, "While in line at Publix, another lottery player was kind enough to let me go ahead of them to purchase the winning quick-pick ticket".    In fact, when the older lady got to the front of the line, the ticket clerk offered Mindy her spot back but Mindy said no.

Friends later teased Mindy telling her she probably let the Powerball winner buy a ticket that should have been hers.  Mindy’s  response,  'Yeah right. No one is going to win from little Zephyrhills,'"  Famous Last Words!

The Little Ole Lady who cut in line bought one computer-generated ticket that had the winning numbers: 10, 13, 14, 22 and 52 with a Powerball of 11.  Wednesday Miss Gloria  chose  the one-time lump sum payment, around 278 million after taxes.

To be honest, there is really no guarantee Mindy would have gotten those same numbers if she didn’t  let Miss Gloria have cuts, if the line jockeying changed the time when the clerk would have hit the button to buy the ticket even by a split second, the numbers would have come up differently.

I still say Miss Gloria needs to give Mindy a couple of million.  What do you think?