Carole (sic)

Convenience Stories: Chapter 1

Everything that works magically is incomprehensible, and the incomprehensible often works magically. One calls incomprehensible workings magical.

— C.G. Jung, The Red Book

McKees Rocks Super Mart

Tuesday, September 19, 2023: McKees Rocks Super Mart (known to the lottery database by its legal name, United Brother LLC) is an indy, a retailer that isn’t part of a corporate chain. In addition to a row of skill games (the state designation for unregulated gambling machines) and two lottery terminals, the place stocks questionable-looking, highly processed food, candy bars, chips, kratom, tobacco, alcohol, and Turner’s iced tea. It also sells Shruumz^tm, which are mushroom supplements sold with 1960s-throwback packaging to trick the gullible customer into thinking they’re purchasing something psychedelic. They’re not, but I’m sure some people swear that it gives them a bit of a buzz all the same.

Kratom is a tropical tree native to Southeast Asia, with leaves that contain opioid receptor agonists, resulting in both stimulant and opiate-like effects. Like the skill games—which also have stimulant and opiate-like effects—kratom is not regulated by the federal government, and in Pennsylvania, it’s sold in gas stations, smoke shops, and convenience stores alongside something called Delta-9 THC. This is THC derived from hemp, which became legal under the 2018 farm bill. The drug exists in a sort of legal gray area. It’s unregulated, so the purity and safety of an individual batch is anyone’s guess. Delta-9 has a better reputation than Floridian cannibal-zombie bath salts, but only among those who get high from items kept behind glass at gas stations.

In Pennsylvania, the distinction between a game of skill (which is unregulated) and video gambling (which is regulated) hinges on the inclusion of a simple puzzle or a decision-making task. To pay out the jackpots, some stores have bitcoin kiosks. One retailer told me that drug dealers use these kiosks to launder money.

Lottery Guy fuel

Inside the Super Mart, pacing in front of a lottery terminal, an agitated, older middle-aged woman with hair dyed a laser-red color was pacing back and forth, visibly agitated. The hair was so brilliant that I almost didn’t notice a couple tattoos below her right ear, geometric shapes altered unrecognizable by the yearly drift of the skin on her head. This was an OG convenience crone. She was clutching a handful of Fastplay tickets, saying to no one in particular: “The ad says every fifth ticket is a winner. I’ve played 18 times today and haven’t won once.” I guess she was referring to a television commercial, which I’m sure she misunderstood. Since she wasn’t talking to anybody in particular, no one in particular answered her, and eventually she wandered off to fetch a catatonic four-year-old girl sitting in the middle of an aisle.

A lottery terminal is really just a big Windows computer, and when it starts to act wiggy without any specific symptoms, it’s a safe bet that the hard drive has gone bad. As I started taking the machine apart, the Convenience Crone with laser red hair left the store with the kid. After about twenty minutes of glorious silence, save for the occasional hacking cough of the woman behind the counter, Laser Red returned without the kid and perched herself on a stool in front of a skill game.

The game was called Pirates, and it looked pretty complicated. On the left-hand side, a scroll showed various symbols (a jar with an eerie orange glow, an old-timey pistol, a skeleton key, a dagger, a snake, a torch, a jolly roger, etc. etc.) listed according to how many points they were worth. The center of the screen showed a three-by-three grid of these symbols, like a slot machine. There were menu options for “level up,” “next puzzle,” help,” and a few other things. I figured the woman couldn’t be a dummy, since her hands were moving with the speed and accuracy of a pro. It really is a shame that this is the thing she chooses to have some competence with.

Then, as the music reached a crescendo, Laser Red stopped cold and looked at me. Her eyes registered shock.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“I won $500.”

“Wow, that’s great.”

“What should I do?”