You know that junk drawer you have? Yeah, the one filled with dead batteries, random screws, expired coupons, and keys to things you don't even own anymore? Well, turns out, sometimes it's not just a monument to procrastination — sometimes it’s a hidden gold mine.
Margot Garstka, a woman from Chicopee, Massachusetts, just casually unearthed a $100,000 winning lottery ticket from hers. No big deal.
Here’s how it went down:
The Massachusetts Lottery put out a desperate press release basically saying, “Hey, someone out there is about to throw away enough cash to buy a small yacht.” Margot’s son saw it on the news, remembered his mom’s hoarding tendencies, and said, “Ma, you got a ticket in that drawer, right?”
Boom. Cue the dramatic junk drawer excavation. Buried under a pile of screwdrivers and who knows what else, there it was: a free "Fishin’ for Quic Pics" ticket she had snagged last spring when buying something at Big Y.
Turns out, that crusty old piece of paper had the winning numbers — 6, 11, 18, 24, and 26 — from the May 1, 2024 Mass Cash drawing. She had exactly until May 1, 2025, to claim it before it got sucked back into the state’s budget abyss. She made it by about two weeks. Legend.
Margot rolled up to the Lottery office on April 15, claimed her cash like a boss, and plans to squirrel it away for herself and her great-grandkids. Meanwhile, the retailer who gave her the winning ticket got a $1,000 bonus, probably for simply existing at the right time.
Oh, and if you’re wondering: the odds of matching all five numbers in Mass Cash? One in 324,632. Which means Margot essentially hit the luck lottery twice: once when she won, and once when she remembered she had even played.
So yeah. Maybe it’s time you cleaned out your junk drawer. You might not find $100,000, but at the very least, you’ll find your dignity.