The Lottery Robbery

Henry Parker worked at convenience store in Piccadilly Circus, within the busiest district of London. Everyday he'd serve horrible bastards, horrible cunts and so on and so on. It was agony, the amount of twats who came wondering in and out of the place was staggering, not one of them was nice, they were all horrid for a pallette of different reasons. Some were teenage yobs, coming in trying to buy cigarettes and alcohol with fake IDs, it was obvious that they were underage. These kids would get violent when Henry wouldn't serve them, sometimes trashing the store, hitting him or verbally abusing poor working class Henry. The upper class pricks weren't much better, if you're an American reading this, forget about hot tea and biscuits,the posh are massive bellends. They would come in dressed to the nines, giving Henry the snobbiest looks imaginable, expecting him to behave like a butler or personal servant. They were the type of swines to complain about literally anything or everything. He couldn't stand them! Occasionally, there were cute tourists from around the world popping in, they were always a pleasure to speak to. They loved London, were happy to be visiting, which was a lot more fun than actually living in the city. Sure, London has it's attractions like Buckingham Palace and Big Ben, etc. There is a huge selection of shops, which makes for an ideal day out for retail therapy. The nightlife is also booming, with more nightclubs than you can imagine and nothing beats a nice, cold pint after a hard day's work in a cosy traditional pub (something Henry did a lot during the weekends). However, actually living in London revealed it's darker secrets and depressing reality. The city was expensive, unbelievably expensive! So bloody expensive, that a shitty little flat in a London sewer, was more expensive than a country bungalow in the north of England. Life was a struggle for Henry, he had lost count how many times he smashed his phone rushing to work on the subway, only for the massive crowds to knock him over, causing him to drop his phone and get the screen repaired for £100+ which was absolutely ridiculous! He felt trapped in this gross, dark and gloomy rat race of rushing to work and then slaving away for sometimes twelve hours a day, for minimum wage which only added to his hopelessness. However, there was something the shop he worked at sold, a promise of fortune, a gamble that could make you millions. Lottery tickets and scratch cards! Henry was always told these things were scams, his father said so, that they were rigged to keep you spending in the vain hope of making it rich. "Get a job!" His dad would say, "go to college, then university. Get a degree in something and make a living that way!"

Henry tried, his whole life he had tried just what his father said. Unfortunately Henry was never an A-level student, he studied two different courses in college and left with mediocre grades. That was ten years ago too, now Henry was almost thirty five, working the same tired job he had since he was a teenager. So when customers returned with big smiling faces, winning big on the scratch cards and lucky dip lottery tickets, Henry wanted in on the action! So he started buying a few scratch cards and lottery tickets after work, getting served by the next man or woman who'd come in to take over, after his shift. He very rarely won anything doing this and spent far more than he ever won. Eventually he just quit doing that and began saving his pennies again like before. It wasn't until a few months later when someone came in with a winning ticket, one that earned the customer £20,000! Henry redeemed his ticket and dared to chuckle; "don't forget to share!" To the winner. The smiling customer suddenly frowned; "piss off!" They said, leaving the shop with a massive check for more money than Henry would ever earn. In that moment, Henry knew the only way out of his dog shit life, was to cheat. He knew from experience, that buying countless amounts of scratch cards and lottery tickets was far more wasteful than profitable. So one early morning when he was opening, he purposely misplaced a whole sheet of scratch cards, hiding them somewhere off camera. When his boss discovered a missing shipment of these things, the blame was ultimately placed on the delivery driver, who unfortunately lost his job over the matter, he may have even paid a fine or community service over it. Henry felt massively guilty over this and promised himself to track down the old delivery guy and give him a small portion of his winnings. The night Henry successfully stole the roll of scratch cards, he began scratching and scratching, he was stunned just by how many of these things were duds. At least 90% of the whole roll were worthless pieces of paper. 7% of them offered small winnings like a few Great British pounds, £10 to £50 winnings, not much, just enough to keep you hooked and addicted to this insidious addiction. It was clearly rigged, so that only a winner would be selected after the companies already made the big bucks off desperate working class people just like Henry. This realisation seemed to justify Henry's theft within his mind, ripping off the lotto companies made him feel so gangster! Of course, what he was doing was incredibly illegal. Not only had he stole from his own workplace, but Henry had also robbed £60k worth of scratch cards because ultimately the final 3% of the roll had awarded him that much, spread across seven different cards. He had done it, the Lottery Robbery was a success (or so he thought).

Henry tried (but ultimately failed, as you will soon see) to redeem his scratch cards at different shops all over London, except his own, in order to avoid any unwanted attention. His first mistake was redeeming them all within two weeks of "winning". You see, rumours of a incredibly lucky scratch card winner began to circulate around London, tales of one guy who was soon coined; "the luckiest chap in all of England" began to make the headlines. Henry foolishly accepted a news interview on national TV too, adoring the fame and attention this story was getting him. The woman who wanted to interview him was a gorgeous 22 year old journalist, with long blonde hair and beautiful features. She was pretty beyond his dreams and he thought the girl actually liked him in the sexual tense. Henry didn't realise, that he was just a story to this up and coming news journalist.

"Some are calling you the luckiest man in England, how do you feel about that, Henry Parker?" She asked with an adorable smile, aiming the microphone below his mouth, they were stood outside, with Buckingham Palace in the background.

"I feel like the king of England!" He laughed at the camera, he simply couldn't resist the pun.

"Well, it's not like you won a million pounds, Henry..." She shut him down a little bit, "but winning so often on the scratchcards is such a rare feat, what's your secret?!" She shoved the microphone towards him again, acting like a detective during an interrogation. Henry could sense she was a little jealous.

"Ju- just luck... I guess!" He replied rather clumsily.

"Just luck, huh?" She eyed him suspiciously, with a mischievous grin.

"Luck of the Irish!" He laughed.

"Oh, you don't sound Irish!" She giggled.

"I'm not..." He admitted.

"Then why did you say that then?" She replied rather snobbishly.

"I eh... Just talking." He awkwardly fumbled. The woman forced a massive, uncomfortable smile and looked directly into the news camera.

"This has been Angelina Carter with BBN News." She ended the interview right there and then.

"So, Angelina..." Henry grinned rather smugly, "fancy a coffee sometime?"

She looked him up and down at him, Henry was a balding, older man with a bulging tummy.

"God no!" She winced, pulling a face that turned her once beautiful gaze into a witch's sneer. She was a completely different person off camera.

"Let's go, Damien!" She barked at her camera man, then they both climbed in the news van and left the scene, leaving Henry alone and a little bit depressed.

"Oh well..." He muttered under his breath, "with this money and fame, I'll get a gal even fitter than her!"

Once Henry's story hit the news, detectives began looking into his bizarre series of fortunate events. Although it wasn't entirely impossible that a man could be so lucky, of course people won the lottery and scratch cards all the time, but to get seven wins in a row like that seemed awfully suspicious. It didn't take long for Scotland Yard to figure him out. It was when they discovered his workplace had recently lost a whole roll of scratch cards, then it was obvious what had happened. Police searched the bins he had outside his house, only to find the missing roll of scratched cards, which clearly matched the order made into the shop that went missing. It didn't take a genius to realise he stole them and used the winnings for himself. Eventually Henry Parker was stripped of his newfound wealth and sent to prison, serving five years for fraud. He will be a released in 2030, penny less and broken. Sometimes crime doesn't pay.