SAUGUS – Shirley Rose, 79, who works the Keno booth at Kowloon Restaurant in Saugus got an unexpected tip last week that brought her $2,000.
“It’s all about being in the right place at the right time,” said Rose.
Last Friday night, said Rose, she was not supposed to work at all, but she decided to cover for someone else. A man that Rose had never met before was having dinner with his wife and friends, and he asked for a KENO ticket.
“He asked me for my favorite numbers, so I gave him my numbers, and he asked me how old I was, and I reluctantly told him, and he played that number,” said Rose.
The numbers that Rose gave to the man were the dates of her son’s and her birthdays, as well as some other lucky numbers. The man then asked for another KENO ticket, and Shirley gave him another one, but the man answered that it was for Shirley.
“That’s for you; you keep that one,” Rose quotes him.
The man then approached Rose again 20 minutes later and asked to check the ticket to see if it won, and she scanned her ticket at the computer, and the computer came up with the message “Do not cash.” It meant that the ticket won more than $600.
“We can’t cash anything over $600,” Rose said.
Rose had a lottery app on her phone, and she scanned the ticket, and the message on her phone said she won $2,000. Rose then went back to the man who bought her the ticket and was enjoying dinner, and she found out that the man’s name was Eddie.
“That was my son’s name,” said Rose.
A little later Eddie’s wife said to Rose that they had a lot of luck that night as her and Eddie’s grandson had just been born. Rose, however, noted that the man was happier for her than for himself.
“I could just see in his face how much pleasure he was getting from the whole deal,” said Rose.
A friend who was there with Eddie said that Eddie did that to everybody, and then Rose discovered that Eddie had done it before with the woman who used to work there before Rose and who is now deceased.
“And they hit, and they won,” said Rose.
Rose said that what struck her most about the whole story was that the man did not think about himself; it was all about her.
“It just touched me; it really did,” said Rose.
Oksana Kotkina can be reached at [email protected].
