MONTREAL -- "I cried a lot for the first couple of days," Linda Phillips said of her recent Lotto Max jackpot win.
She wasn't aware that she won the $55-million jackpot from Oct. 30 until she asked her son to check a few tickets that had piled up in her kitchen.
"When I buy lottery tickets I put them in the kitchen in a little bowl," Phillips said.
Phillips purchased the winning ticket on Halloween at the IGA Famille Charles Cantley north of Gatineau, where she decided to get a few scratch tickets for her grandchildren. In that moment, she figured she'd buy a few Lotto Max tickets as well.
"I buy them from two places when I remember to do it," she said.
Phillips had wandered downstairs when her son realized one of the tickets seemed to have all the numbers that corresponded to those of the Oct. 30 draw.
He frantically called for his mother, whose first instinct was to think that something terrible had happened.
When Phillips realized what all the fuss was about, she began to scream.
"We need to calm down, we've obviously made a mistake here," Phillips told her son. They immediately left the house to check the ticket at a store.
Even the store clerk who validated the ticket seemed unsure about what to do when it became clear Phillips had won.
"It was utter disbelief," she said. "I saw that they were looking for this person... but I didn't think it was me."
The money means Phillips gets to retire 13 months ahead of schedule, which was both exciting and guilt-inducing at once.
Phillips said she didn't want to cause any stress to her boss and coworkers, but they were all very supportive in the end.
"Don't be stupid, that's why people buy the lottery," was how her boss reacted, she said.
The first thing Phillips did with the money was buy an expensive bottle of champagne to celebrate her win with her family.
Moving forward, she plans to use the money for her retirement and to take care of her loved ones.
"It's a very strange feeling... Very nice feeling," she said.
