Moral of the story? Clean your damn drawers.
You know that junk drawer you swear you’ll organize every weekend but instead keep stuffing with rubber bands, expired coupons, and old batteries? Yeah, well, one New Jersey couple just found a million-dollar lottery ticket in theirs. No metaphor. A literal, actual, government-certified, life-changing $1 million Mega Millions winner — just chilling between paperclips and who-knows-what for five months.
It all started on New Year's Eve when this anonymous couple from Mercer County grabbed some lottery tickets at a Speedymart because apparently that's how they wanted to welcome 2025 — with false hope and scratch-offs. Then, like most people with attention spans fried by smartphones and streaming, they completely forgot about the tickets and let them marinate in a drawer until May.
Fast forward five months, one random drawer-opening session, and boom: surprise, you're rich.
The husband (we assume — the Lottery didn’t name names because New Jersey has manners) decided to scan the tickets. First one? Nope. Second one? Nada. Third one? BAM — the machine said “WINNER.” Naturally, the man assumed it was maybe $1,000. Possibly $10K if the universe was feeling generous. But nope. Try $1 million. As in six zeroes. As in “debt-free-kids-and-we're-still-having-leftovers” kind of money.
The ticket had matched all five white balls in the December 31 drawing. Odds of that happening? About 1 in 12.6 million. So yes, it's rarer than someone voluntarily using Bing.
The kicker? They still had time to claim it. Lottery winners in New Jersey get a full year to cash in, so technically this couple could’ve found it after Halloween and still been okay. But let’s be honest — finding it when they did saved them from a whole therapy session’s worth of regret.
So what are they doing with the money? No Lambos. No yachts. Not even a diamond-encrusted espresso machine. Instead, they're using it to pay off their kids’ debts. Because apparently responsibility still exists.
Final thought: go check your drawers. Right now. Seriously. Because somewhere in America, someone else is probably sitting on a million dollars and a half-eaten granola bar without even knowing it.