Times Square at Night

Like any self-respecting retiree living on a fixed income, I bought a lottery ticket today. I know lotteries in particular and gambling in general are taxes on people who cannot do math, but how else am I going to become a billionaire? My Dad, love him as I might, isn’t going to make me one via the trust fund route. No way. Nada. It’s not going to happen. Neither do I have the inclination nor the initiative to go the Silicon Valley route and just invent a billion dollars out of thin air and forget about earning the money. I’m all done with work. So, that pretty much leaves the lottery as my only avenue to membership in the 1%.

Fortunately for me Mega Millions is offering a billion dollar jackpot. The odds of winning tonight are pretty farfetched, but I figure that springing two bucks for a single ticket does increase my odds immensely. The old fallback of finding the winning ticket lying on the sidewalk seems like even more of a longshot than just purchasing one. Purchasing more than one ticket only increases my odds of winning infinitesimally. One ticket is substantial enough to support my dreams.

Anne asked me if there was a line to buy the ticket and there was a long one. Then she asked me if I had queried any of others queued for their share of the riches, what they planned on doing with the money. I confessed that I hadn’t. It seemed impolitic of me to intrude into their dreams. Speaking of politics, Anne and I both joked that with a billion dollars, we could buy a senator or two, his and hers. Why not? We’d be one-percenters after all. I mean how much money can you really spend on stuff? How many houses and cars does one need to buy? If I’m too lazy to go out and get a job, then I’m certainly not going to work that hard at spending it all. Winning a billion dollars could turn out to be quite the white elephant. That is, a gift so expensive that it bankrupts the recipient.