I would have been happy to pay for lion no biggie or leaped or whatever came on a 2007 Mac mini but I was told that wouldn't solve my issue. Not sure I am new to Mac systems got my first mac and iPhone this past year so I didn't expect any of that.
I can see where that would be an issue but one solution could be that you could've taken your Mac to the Apple store nearest you and they would've logged into your App Store account, had you buy Lion/ML and they would install it for you. They have their backup copy right in the store. Chances are they probably wouldn't even ask you to buy Lion/ML seeing as they know your Mac came with it and they would just install it for free for you via their backup copy.
Then you go home and log into your Mac App Store account and buy ML and make a backup copy of it on a USB stick, DVD or SD card.