The Lottery

Today at the mall I wanted to try my hand at the lottery. The shame of it is really, I don't have a clue at all. I asked a fellow in line if I had to buy the lottery ticket before filling it out, and he chuckled rather pompously and told me that you fill it out first, and then pay for it. Agreeably, I went and filled out a ticket and took it to the counter. The lady at the counter then proceeded to insert my slip into a machine that could read the little tick marks I made on it. She had to run it through several times, really, because the first three or so tries it simply said "SLIP ERROR". And when it worked, she gave me another slip of paper with the very numbers I marked down in pencil, stamped out on receipt paper accompanied by several cryptic code numbers and bar codes.

I'm 19. I'm looking for a job, and in participating in the lottery I might just catch that unbelievable wealth flying through the air at breakneck speeds. It could fly into my mouth, or it could zoom past me, who knows. I have to see. My grandfather did the same thing, only with a giant fishnet and hundreds of blank lottery tickets hidden away in a drawer. He never won.

The only problem now is, I have this authoritative looking receipt with fancy black symbols all over it and generic instructions on the back, which don't help much at all. Now what do I do?