Thank goodness for bad traffic.
A Long Island electrician made a spur-of-the-moment stop to buy scratch-off lottery tickets to avoid a traffic jam — and ended up winning $5 million.
Thomas Mainella, 62, of Melville was driving home from work last December, when he hit a road detour in Plainview that caused a bumper-to-bumper backup, he said.
To steer clear of road rage, he pulled over for a break at Sunny Cards and Gifts and bought six Set for Life scratch-off tickets, played them at the shop and earned he had hit it big.
“The fifth ticket said, ‘You’re a winner.’ I just yelled, ‘I freakin’ won!’ and threw my hands up.
“I think I scared people,” he joked.
“I’ve always told people I’m going to win big on this game. They all thought I was crazy,” he said.
He canceled his evening plans and rushed home to surprise his fiancée, Donna, with the stunning news.
“I asked her, ‘Do you believe in me?’ ” he said.
“She said, ‘Yeah.’ Then I showed her the ticket — and we hugged and kissed,” he said.
Mainella, who is self-employed, plans to keep working until Donna retires, opting to collect an annual $172,000 pay-out, he said.
He has no clue how he’ll spend his newfound fortune, he said.
Mainella was one of four Long Island residents who took home a total $12 million in lottery winnings on Tuesday.
Sheila Esposito, 67, of Lindenhurst who works for the IRS, scored $1 million from a Million Dollar Money Clip scratch-off.
She bought the tickets and played in her car while waiting to meet her daughter and granddaughter for a lunch date, she said.
After she won, they were stunned.
“We kept repeating, ‘This can’t be true, this can’t be true!’ ” Esposito said. “I kept double-checking . . . Now it’s almost real.”
She opted to take a cash payment of $760,000 and now plans to retire, travel and take a cruise, she said.
“It’s just going to make for a more secure retirement. I can do a lot more now and I can go first class!” she said.
Other lottery winners were Jan Graff, a mother of three who won $5 million from a Maximum Millions scratch-off, and Glenn Sternkopf, a 44-year old warehouse manager who won $1 million from a Black Diamonds Riches scratch-off.
Sternkopf plans to “go on a really good vacation, maybe to Hawaii,” he said.