Last Saturday night, one of two winning Powerball tickets was sold in Missouri. Although, by state law the name of this winner will not be announced until Tuesday, I want to go on record now that it was not me. I figured that you wanted to know. However, I did buy losing tickets last Monday, if that counts.

Last week, the jackpot was more than a billion dollars, when I used a kiosk at the grocery store to purchase my tickets. Rather, I misused it. I only wanted to buy one ticket, but credit card purchases have a minimum of eight. Too many. While the odds of winning go up significantly with buying one ticket versus none, they do not increase much with subsequent buys. I decided to try the cash route, but I only had twenties. Thinking that I could get change or rather not thinking, I inserted my bill into the slot. It turns out that the machine did not give change. Who knew? So, in the end, I bought ten tickets all of which were losers.

In the end though, it probably was for the best. What am I going to do with a billion dollars? Or rather, half-a-billion, if I elect to take the instant payout. Or rather, a third-of-a-billion after taxes. At this rate, pretty soon, we will no longer be talking about real money anymore. Still, 300 million is a healthy chunk of change. Too healthy, to my mind.

With that much money, kidnapping becomes a real concern. First, I would have to move. I do not even want to think about that. Then I would have to hire security. That would mean that anytime I wanted to go anywhere, I would have to tell Bubba, my new head of security, who would then gather up his goons and then and only then we could begin traipsing. That sounds like a real downer. With no freedom of movement, what would I do? I could take up union busting, court stacking and deregulating as do my new ilk, but none of those activities are currently my style and I am not sure if I could get into any of that. I could begin donating the money. With that many funds, it would become a new career. But I am retired. I worked hard to become so, and I do not want a job, even one that I hire myself for. What was I thinking? Why did I buy those tickets anyway? In the end, I am glad that I was a loser and plan on remaining so.

So, why did I buy a ticket and even infinitesimally risk this awful fate? I don’t expect to win, the odds are against it (1 in 292 million), but a lottery ticket is also a ticket to dream. When you dream about winning, you only think about all of the good things that will happen and not of any of the bad. All that money buys you fortune, fame and fun, not millions of solicitors trying to reach you all of the time. One of the best reasons to buy a lottery ticket occurred years ago, when a coworker was throwing a dinner party. He bought each guest their own personal ticket and presented it to them at dinner. It was a great parlor trick and greatly enlivened the dinnertime conversation. They say that the odds of winning Powerball are about the same as flipping an ordinary coin and getting heads, twenty-eight times in a row. Start flipping!