4 People Whose Good Luck Defied the Laws of Reality
The world is full of superstitious people who are convinced that you need to follow a series of ridiculous rituals to be lucky, from finding mutant vegetation to carrying severed animal parts with you.
That's all hogwash, but if the following people told us we need to drink a glass of cat piss every morning to be as lucky as them, we'd be first in line at Big Pat's Manor of Feline Urine every morning.
Woman Buys Two Lottery Tickets by Mistake, They Both Win
Have you ever been at the grocery store and couldn't remember whether you had already purchased something, like milk? Naturally, you buy the damn milk anyway, because there's nothing sadder than eating dry Lucky Charms at 3:00 a.m. Well, this incident is kind of like that, except instead of being left with two jugs of milk, this lady was left with two buttloads of money.
This was Australia, so that's actually the technical term their bankers used.
An Australian woman had a weekly routine of buying a lottery ticket at the supermarket in Melbourne. But one week she forgot that she had already purchased one, so she bought an additional ticket by mistake. She was shocked the following week when she received a phone call that both of these tickets were winners. She received the equivalent of $383,809.46 American ... for each ticket.
"You've also won a lifetime ban from playing the lottery. Because fuck it, we're not taking any chances."
Man Buys Painting for $50, It Turns Out to Be Worth $388,000
Retired ophthalmic surgeon Robin Darvell was attending an auction where he placed a winning bid for $50 on a box of mostly useless, worth-way-less-than-$50 knickknacks. One piece in the box caught his eye in particular -- a little painting no bigger than a postcard that had an almost completely faded signature on it.
"Sweet, new beer coaster."
Ten years passed, and the painting collected dust in a drawer. Darvell's son recently happened upon it amid some papers and remembered how his father used to remark that it looked like a painting by famous artist John Constable, which usually caused the rest of the family to "roll their eyes" at Darvell.
"They say recognition of English romanticism is the first to go ... maybe it's time for a home."
On a whim, the son got an appraisal from the TV show Treasure Detectives and was stunned to find out that not only had his dear old dad been right all along -- it was indeed an original Constable -- but more importantly, the damn thing was worth $388,000. Moral of the story: Don't throw anything away, ever, as it all probably belonged to Napoleon.
Casino Accidentally Gives $1 Million to Man With Same Name as Winner, They Both Get to Keep It
Kevin Lewis of Cincinnati, Ohio, had high hopes when he entered the Horseshoe Casino one fateful day. Meanwhile, Kevin Lewis of Cincinnati, Ohio (no relation), sat in another section of the casino thinking the same thing. Turns out they were both right.
Pictured: Two lucky bastards and the fakest smile you've seen on a casino employee.
See, both Kevins entered a monthly drawing for a million big ones, and one of them actually won. However, since they both had the same name, city of residence, race, and amount of hair, the casino ended up publicly congratulating the wrong Kevin Lewis for winning, in front of TV cameras no less.
That's when they realized their mistake, and they ended up granting both the real Kevin and his doppelganger the million dollars. We're guessing that at this point every other man in the audience stood up and bellowed "I am Kevin Lewis," Spartacus-style.
Norwegian Man Had Previously Unknown Van Gogh Painting in His Attic
Look deep enough in anyone's attic and you'll come across some sort of unwanted painting relegated there long ago (because big frames don't fit in trash cans). In the case of a man from Norway, it was this one:
Eh, we'd hang it in front of the toilet for inspiration.
A museum had appraised the painting years earlier, only to inform him that the painting wasn't worth a lot. But, somehow, he recently convinced experts to take another look at it -- likely just to "forget" to pick it up again when they told him it was worthless -- and that's when it was discovered that it was painted by some dude named Vincent you may have heard of:
This one is called "I've Made a Huge Mistake."
Yep, the big square collecting moss in his roof was a previously unknown Van Gogh painting, the first full-size canvas to be discovered since 1928. Van Gogh had even talked about the painting -- which is now in the hands of a private collector -- in a letter he wrote to his brother on July 4, 1888, describing the location as a "stony heath where twisted oaks grow" and saying he was "absinthe'd as fuck-all when I painted it" .
