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Calgary man forgoes tattoo appointment for $30-million winning lotto ticket

Darrell and Laurie Szczerba won the Lotto Max $30 million jackpot.

It’s moments like winning a $30-million lottery windfall that really make you re-evaluate your priorities.

Darrell Szczerba’s schedule started out pretty clear last Saturday. The Calgary man was sitting in the Smiling Buddha tattoo parlour waiting to get some fresh ink on his leg.

As he waited for his appointment, the veteran construction worker decided to step across the street to a nearby convenience store.

“It was crazy, I had a half hour to kill before my appointment, so I went to the gas station to check my tickets and get a cold drink,” Szczerba told reporters at a press conference last week. “I didn’t get that drink.”

He may not have gotten that drink but he can have as many cold drinks as he likes for the rest of his life served on a jewel-encrusted platter, because Szczerba happened to be holding on to the biggest winning lottery ticket in Calgary’s history.

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That’s when the priority shift kicked in. The Canadian Press reports that getting a tattoo no longer seemed like the best way to spend an afternoon.

“My first thought was, ‘I’ve got to drive home,’” he told the news agency. “I went back across the street and cancelled my appointment … I couldn’t sit there with a winning ticket in my pocket.”

His wife, Laurie, on the other hand, would have to wait a little longer to hear the news. She was tied up at the manicurist and had turned her ringer off because she probably wasn’t anticipating a phone call to let her know she could now afford to buy the entire beauty salon.

Both Szczerbas have quit their jobs and plan to do all sorts of fun things with their new-found wealth, like travel and buy a bigger house.

Meanwhile, the Calgary couple joins a long list of lotto winners with unusual stories.

Back in 2007, Cornwall, U.K. resident Derek Ladner was so excited to discover he’d won nearly £1m in the national lottery that he forgot he’d purchased an additional ticket.

A week later, when all the chaos had died down, he realized he had an identical winning ticket – and effectively doubled his share of the cash pie (the sweetest pie there is).

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And while many of us dream of winning the lottery, one Toronto woman actually turned this entire figurative concept into reality.

Mary Wollens went to bed one September night in 2006 and fell asleep to visions of lotto numbers dancing in her head. Luckily, she had a pen and piece of paper handy.

"I was lying in bed and I had a dream about numbers so I wrote them down when I woke up," she told the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp (via QMI Agency).

Those numbers ended up winning the 86-year-old $16 million after she purchased two tickets with the same numerical sequence. It sent the rest of us back to bed, only to wake up each morning frustrated by the inability of our unconscious minds to transform us into psychic millionaires.

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