LA GRANGE — It’s the type of situation that’s inspired thousands of bad romantic comedies: A loving couple buys a lottery ticket as a goof; their ticket ends up being a winner; the couple fights over who owns the ticket; moviegoer demands their $8 back when people behind them won’t shut up.
In the case of Deanna Rigg, 32, and Michael Karoli, 41, of La Grange, the ticket they purchased at their neighborhood gas station yielded a $70,000 (after taxes) payoff. While it takes winnings of usually $1 million or more to make headlines these days, both Couples and Karoli say the money would be a big help.
“My texting bill alone is usually around $100 a month,” Couples said. “Gas is more expensive than crack and between furloughs and cut wages at my job, I have no disposable income; if it’s not essential I don’t have it.’”
“I live way out in Lenoir County,” Karoli said. “I live closer to Wayne County than I do Kinston, but I’m stuck on City of Kinston Utilities. Shoot, that $70,000 lottery money would cover my light bill for at least six months.”
After a night on the town that included a tractor pull and a viewing of the new Renoir exhibit in Raleigh, the couple stopped at a gas station in Smithfield for cigarettes. Having downed several cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer at the Renoir exhibit, they decided to buy 10 lottery tickets.
“At the time we considered the lottery tickets to be a sound investment,” Rigg said Monday. “After the PBR wore off, I just thought we’d wasted $20 that could have been spent on something practical like Renoir beer cozies.”
The following day the couple started scratching — the tickets, that is.
“The first nine were all duds,” Karoli said. “By the time we got to the last one, Deanna got tired of it and threw the last ticket at me. She left in a huff, so I took that to mean she didn’t want the ticket.”
That last ticket would sit on kitchen table unscratched for the next two days.
“My brother came over one night for supper and brought his 5-year-old son with him,” Karoli said. “My little nephew always likes to take those car flyers that come through the mail with the little scratch off windows and play with them. I used to throw them out, but ever since that little rascal won a Leon Spinks Grilling Machine from the local Chevrolet dealer last June, I started saving them for when he comes over.”
Thinking the lottery ticket was a car advertisement, the five-year-old entrepreneur conned Karoli out of a quarter “because quarters scratch better than pennies” and set to uncovering what mysteries lie under the thin silver patch of latex ink.
“Usually, he’ll run up to me and show the results,” Karoli said. “But that night the little rascal tried to ease out the door with the ticket folded up in his sock. I knew something was up when he told his daddy he was ready to go to bed at 7 p.m.”
Word of the winnings spread like wildfire. Karoli said his former girlfriend rang him up immediately.
“I told her I thought we’d been growing apart and that we should just make a clean break,” Karoli said. “She was not receptive to that suggestion.”
Unable to come to an agreement on how to divide the winnings, Karoli and Rigg filed suit against each other in Lenoir County District Court on Monday. Between attorney fees and court costs, the trial is expected to cost Karoli and Rigg nearly $35,000 each.
Jon Dawson’s columns appear every Tuesday and Thursday in The Free Press. Contact Jon at 252-559-1092 or jon.dawson@kinston.com. Purchase music, books and VHS copies of the hit NBC series “Blossom” at jondawson.com.