Local Mobil Station Becomes Pilgrimage Site as 330 Million Americans Converge on ‘Lucky’ Location
ALTADENA, CA — Traffic authorities report complete gridlock across Southern California as virtually every American citizen has descended upon the Mobil gas station where last year’s record $2.04 billion Powerball ticket was sold, all hoping to replicate the lightning-in-a-bottle magic of the establishment’s clearly supernatural lottery powers.
“This is obviously the chosen location,” said Janet Wilkins of Portland, Oregon, who drove 18 hours straight and is now camping in the station’s energy drink cooler. “You don’t just accidentally sell a $2 billion winner. This place has been blessed by the lottery gods.”
The gas station, which normally serves roughly 200 customers per day, is now accommodating the entire population of the United States, plus several million tourists who flew in from other countries after hearing about America’s “magic lottery building.” The line to purchase tickets now stretches from Altadena to Phoenix, with an estimated wait time of 847 years.
“We’ve had to implement a strict one-beef-jerky-per-customer policy,” explained overwhelmed store manager Rick Santos, who hasn’t seen his family in three days. “Also, we’re completely out of everything except for those weird energy drinks that taste like cotton candy and regret.”
Local resident Maria Gonzalez expressed frustration that she can no longer access her neighborhood gas station. “I just need to buy milk, but there are literally millions of people convinced that standing in the exact spot where someone else got lucky will somehow transfer that luck to them,” she said. “It’s like they think probability works through osmosis.”
The California National Guard has been deployed to manage the crowds, though their efforts have been hampered by the fact that most of the guardsmen have also purchased lottery tickets and keep checking their phones obsessively.
At press time, a competing Shell station in Nevada was reportedly offering a “Double Luck Guarantee” and preparing for their own 330-million-person invasion.