\u201cI joked, \u2018Nah, no need \u2013 it was us, we won it,\u2019 and that was before we even knew!\u201d<\/p>\n
The comment was quickly forgotten until a few days later, when the man was out running errands and decided to pop into New World Greymouth and check his ticket.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe look on the operator\u2019s face will stay with me forever,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe calmly closed the Lotto counter and took me to the office, where she said, \u2018You\u2019ve just won Lotto,\u2019 and showed me the receipt with the amount on it. <\/p>\n
\u201cI started shaking, trying to make sense of it \u2013 I just couldn\u2019t comprehend the numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n
The couple say their wish-list isn’t too extensive. <\/p>\n
After completing the paperwork, the man left the store and tried to call his partner, who was busy in the garden and didn\u2019t hear her phone.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I came back inside, I saw all the missed calls. I phoned him straight back and he was crying and could barely talk. I thought something must be seriously wrong,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Through tears, he finally managed to get the words out: \u201cI\u2019ve just won five million dollars.\u201d <\/p>\n
His partner said: \u201cI didn\u2019t believe him, but then he sent me a photo of the paperwork and called again, saying, \u2018Whatever you do, don\u2019t tell anyone,\u2019 so that\u2019s when I thought \u2026 maybe he\u2019s actually telling the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n
The man drove home carefully and on high alert.<\/p>\n
\u201cSuddenly, I was hyper-aware of everything. The only other time I\u2019ve driven like that was when we brought our newborn baby home from the hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n
Celebrations will come later, but that night, the couple marked the moment with a couple of chocolate biscuits in lieu of champagne.<\/p>\n
The couple are still processing the news and have been busy thinking about their future and all of the opportunities ahead.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re so overwhelmed and emotional. We just keep saying to each other, \u2018Can you believe it?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOur wishlist isn\u2019t that long,\u201d said the man. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll pay off our mortgage and do some renovations, and we\u2019d love to take a trip in the future.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI joked, \u2018Nah, no need \u2013 it was us, we won it,\u2019 and that was before we even…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[165046,165045,308,192,9218,138,11586,4731,9174,43714,1351,148309,89504,10506,1132,111,139,69,20878,10512,6695,8229,10507,34296,3807,10508],"class_list":{"0":"post-300465","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-165046","9":"tag-508m","10":"tag-actually","11":"tag-are","12":"tag-before","13":"tag-business","14":"tag-coast","15":"tag-days","16":"tag-discover","17":"tag-discovering","18":"tag-had","19":"tag-holders","20":"tag-joked","21":"tag-lotto","22":"tag-million","23":"tag-new-zealand","24":"tag-newzealand","25":"tag-nz","26":"tag-powerball","27":"tag-prize","28":"tag-regions","29":"tag-they","30":"tag-ticket","31":"tag-unclaimed","32":"tag-west","33":"tag-winner"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}