Tennessee Man Loses $1 Million Lottery Ticket, Finds in Parking Lot

Have you ever gone from fine to ecstatic to demoralized to the type of ecstatic you get when you receive $1 million? I haven’t, but maybe you know the feeling.

Nick Slatten certainly does. The Tennessee resident learned on March 11 that he had matched all numbers on a lottery ticket worth $1,178,74. That’s the first ecstatic.

“I was stunned. I couldn’t believe it,” said Slatten, who bought the winning ticket at a local grocery store on March 10.

So happy, Slatten rushed to his fiancée’s workplace to tell her that they were now rich. Life was about to get really good — then Slatten came to a dark realization: he’d lost the ticket.

How would you handle such a thing? (Insert dark music.)

Just to ruin Slatten’s day even more, the lottery says that if a player loses an unsigned ticket, anyone can claim it. (I wish I had known, I would’ve booked a flight.)

At this point, in a panic, Slatten took the advice we all get in 2nd grade, to retrace his steps. The lame but useful advice led Slatten back to an auto parts store where he saw the ticket lying in the parking lot.

Great news.

“It’s a million-dollar ticket, and someone stepped right over it,” Slatten says.

By the way, how did the ticket not blow away? That’s Tom Brady-style luck.