Opera lover Virginia Mercuris is hitting a high note – the Brooklyn woman won a whopping $250,000 yesterday in the fabulous Post Poker $4 Million Scratch N’ Win game.
Mercuris, 60, of Windsor Terrace, took down the quarter-of-a-million-dollar jackpot after scratching off five aces on the game card she’d picked up yesterday in The Post – the paper that delivers real cash, not broken promises.
“I couldn’t believe it – I felt my eyes were playing tricks on me!” said Mercuris. “I’m not a card player and don’t even play Lotto – but I won. It’s amazing!”
A new Post Poker game card will be in Monday’s paper.
Mercuris plans to use part of her windfall to get season tickets to the Metropolitan Opera – and hopefully see her favorite opera of all time, Puccini’s “La Boheme.”
Every day, Virginia, a home health-care worker, buys the Post for herself and her 98-year-old patient, Phyllis DeRosa, to read and enjoy together.
Yesterday, she began scratching the numbers on her Scratch N’ Win game card that corresponded to the numbers printed in The Post.
“I kept scratching and the aces kept coming up. When I hit the fifth ace, I said to myself, ‘Whoa! I have a
winner here,’ ” she recalled.
Even then, Virginia, a devoted parishioner at Memorial Baptist Church, where she plays the piano and teaches Sunday school, wasn’t sure it was for real.
“I kept going back to the card and checking the numbers again and again – and then finally it sunk in.
“I feel God ordained this. I believe all blessings come from above – the Bible tells you that – and this is a blessing.”
It hasn’t been an easy couple of years for Virginia, who lost both her mother, also named Virginia, and her sister
Frances last year.
But now, with a cool quarter of a million in the bank, things are looking up.
“I’m going to fix up my apartment with some of the money and buy a season pass to the Met,” she said. “And I’ve always wanted to see Ireland and there are some missionaries there I want to visit.” With a nice chunk of change in the bank, she’ll also have some added financial security to help her through her golden years.