When my husband came home from a grocery run recently, he met me with a smile on his face. “Guess what I’ve got?” he asked as he put his hand into his pocket.
Hmmmm…Must be smaller than a bread box. I was going to guess a new car. But that wouldn’t fit in his pocket.
The keys would, though. Okay, that’s my guess. “A new car!”
“Millions of dollars!” he quipped.
My dear husband had obviously lost his mind, I thought. There’s no way he could fit that much money in his pocket.
With that, he whipped out five pieces of paper. “Lottery tickets,” he said. “Mega-something and Power Ball. The prize this week is $150 million. Do you know what we could do with that?”
Uh, buy pants with bigger pockets?
Get a new car? A couple of new cars? A whole fleet of new cars in all colors of the rainbow that we could drive only once a week each—that way I could have a car that coordinated with any outfit I’d wear?
And thus, it began again—our Lottery Wishful Thinking.
We’d build a big Victorian house and pay off our bills. Sure, then we would get a couple of new cars—not a whole fleet; considering that I’m the Queen of Coupons, hundred and fifty mil or not, there’s no way that I could buy that many cars. We would travel, post-pandemic, of course, do things for friends and family, give to charities…
Then the weird stuff comes in…
While most new mega-rich people would head to Tiffany’s with a platinum card, I would head to the local office supply store. I’d buy every kind of pastel or multicolored post-It note, folder, paper clips, and paper. I would buy all the office organizing stuff I could—I would run down the aisles with reckless abandon throwing baby blue, pale green, bright yellow, and soft mauve items into my cart.
Oh, yeah. I’d be living large.
Next, I’d hit the local kitchen gadget store and get everything ever made by Ron Popeil—of Ronco fame. The choppers, the slicers, the dicers, the egg cookers, the pancake makers, the deep fryers—everything except those chicken rotisseries, as standing-up dead chickens freak me out.
Finally–as I gasp with utter joy simply at the thought of it–I would head to the bookstores. Right now, I frequent the library. But with all those bucks, I’d become a big donor—of all the books that I’d buy and read once.
I’d get the latest, the greatest, the New York Times Bestsellers, and the books on the discount racks. Classics and research books, collectors’ books and one-of-a-kind books, journals, and magazines, and bookmarks, and, and…
Thunk.
Sorry, I fainted from excitement. But you get the idea.
On Saturday morning, the day after the Mega-something (actually, it’s called Mega Millions) lottery took place, my husband looked online and began looking for the previous night’s winning number.
“Oh my gosh,” he whispered.
Oh my goodness, I thought, with my mind racing. We must have won. We must have won! I’m sure of it. He wouldn’t get that quiet for no reason. Staples, Office Depot, Crate and Barrel, Barnes and Noble, and Borders, here I come!
“Well?” I asked.
“We got two numbers on a couple tickets,” he said.
“What does that get us?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said. “But no one won it. So the next drawing is worth over $170 million. Want me to get a few tickets?”
Here we go again…
Michele “Wojo” Wojciechowski, when she’s not dreaming of pastel office supplies, writes Wojo’s World® from Baltimore. She’s also the author of the award-winning humor book Next Time I Move, They’ll Carry Me Out in a Box. You can connect with Wojo on Facebook or on Twitter.
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I’m glad we’re not the only ones who do that. Once the jackpot starts climbing we’ll buy a ticket and then plan our home, refuge for dogs, movie making and so on. My husband says we’re paying $2 for the pleasure of a dream.