Monday morning, on his way to work, Bob Hauser stopped off at the local Seven-Eleven, where he bought a newspaper, a donut, a cup of coffee, and a lottery ticket. Bob was already well set in life, but he was always on the lookout for ways to increase his wealth.

Outside, juggling his purchases while trying to retrieve his car keys, he let the lottery ticket get away from him and watched as it swirled away in the brisk breeze.

A few blocks down the street, Laura Potter saw the ticket waft past her, but couldn't reach it before it disappeared.

At the corner of Main and Oak, it glommed itself to the windshield of Dick Logan's pickup truck for an instant, but again made its escape.

Throughout the afternoon, it came within mere feet of several equally unlucky individuals and spent the night in a covered pavilion at Schuster Park, where it went unnoticed by quite a few hurried passersby.

As dawn broke, the ticket again found wings, fluttering past a cab driver and a police officer before entering a dead-end alley off Delancey Street and coming to rest on the tattered sleeping bag of homeless veteran Jefferey Miller.

At noon, Jeff wheeled his shopping cart to Filbert's Liquors (even though he didn't drink) and found that the ticket was worth almost two hundred million dollars.

He now resides in a small villa outside Limon, Costa Rica, with several other displaced former soldiers.

They send their regards.