In one instant, a kind-of lousy Father’s Day present became an unimaginably amazing gift.
On June 21, 61-year-old truck driver Joseph Morrah received, like many other fathers, a card with a lottery ticket inside. In the moment he scratched it off, he became a millionaire.
Christina Morrah, his daughter, gave her father the card and the $20 ticket, but Debbie Morrah, his wife, claims it was all her idea, saying “I said, ‘Buy a lottery ticket for him,’ because I didn’t get him anything, and I felt bad.”
Now, he can get whatever he wants for Father’s Day, which is his retirement. Morrah, who’s been driving a supermarket truck for 31 years, had less than 200 days before he could retire, but thanks to his new fortune, he can bow out early.
According to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Morrah has hired a financial adviser to help him decide what type of lottery payout he’d like and to plan his retirement, a rather smart move considering the financial complexities of winning the lottery. Two winners who win the same exact amount, but live in different places and choose different payment methods may wind up with two totally different sums when all is said and done, after all.
Of course, Morrah can’t not get himself new toys with the money, either. The truck driver, who also owns a stylish 1960s-era Chevrolet Bel-Air, said he plans to purchase “another muscle car” and a new pickup truck, replacing his old one, which he’ll give to his other daughter, Kimberly Morrah.
“It still hasn’t settled in,” he told the newspaper. “When I see the check in my hand, then I’ll believe it.”