Rebeca Gonzalez got the call no retail worker wants on a weekend they’re scheduled off — the store was short-staffed and her manager needed her to come in for a few hours.
It would be a shift that would change Gonzalez’s life.
Overwhelmed with customers during the Labor Day weekend, Gonzalez was unable to keep to her plan to buy a lottery scratcher on her lunch break, she told The Times in an interview. Instead, she bought it at the end of her shift after almost forgetting to purchase one in the first place.
When she scratched it — it revealed she’d won $1 million.
“I’ve only told one person at work, and it was the manager who wanted me to stay late on a holiday,” she said. “He couldn’t believe it.”
Gonzalez had been purchasing Scratchers twice a month, and the most she’s ever won was $50.
It’s a gamble that her dad had always taken and Gonzales started doing the same just for the thrill of the “what if.” She never dreamed she would win $1 million.
And to think she almost didn’t buy a scratcher that day.
“I wanted to, obviously, be home with my family because we planned to barbecue,” Gonzalez told the California Lottery.
In fact, the only reason Gonzalez was motivated to buy a scratcher that particular day was because she found a $10 bill in her pocket, leftover change from a raspado, or shaved ice, that her daughter had purchased. After her find, she resolved to put it toward buying a scratcher during her lunch break.
But with the store busy, she’d nearly forgotten her plan until she felt the $10 burning a hole in her pocket on the walk back to her car at the end of the night.
She walked back into the store, purchased the Scratcher and started revealing the game spots, uncovering the $1 million prize.
Before her win, Gonzalez’s life as a working mother was a grind that required getting up early to take her two children — who share a room — to school before going to work in the day and attending night classes at Mt. San Antonio College to become a radiologist.
Now, the family has an offer in on a five-bedroom home, much of their debt is paid off and Gonzalez has put in her two weeks’ notice at work so she can focus on her schooling. It’s a far cry from her low-income upbringing, where the family struggled to make ends meet, she said.
When she shared the news of her win with her family, Gonzalez said they cried.
There’s a verification process a winner undergoes, and Gonzalez said she was told by California Lottery staff there’s a video recording of her jumping up and down in celebration outside the local liquor store where she verified her scratcher card.
“I was doing that and looking up at the sky and thanking God, because this is a blessing,” she said.
