I have to sorrowfully report that I missed my chance to win $587 million. CNN has announced that the record Powerball jackpot has been won. Darn. I can’t feel too bad though. I didn’t buy a ticket. As they say, you can’t win if you don’t play.
I can resist the pull of Powerball, although I do play now and then. When I do splurge, I let the machine at the convenience store pick the numbers for me. I don’t want to get attached to a particular set of numbers. It would be just my luck to pick “my” numbers week after week and then miss a week, only to see my numbers pop up for a giant jackpot.
Like many people I do sometimes buy into the hype and throw away my money when the jackpot is “really big.” As if a jackpot of “just $1 million” wouldn’t be life changing.
And like everyone else, I like to imagine what I would do if I won the lottery and had unlimited funds. The first thing I would do is find an investment person to make sure it lasted. In fact, I think I’d split the money into thirds and get three investment people, in case one of them wasn’t good at his or her job.
Once safely invested, I’d do some traveling, visiting all the places where my husband Chuck and I lived when we weren’t living in Minnesota. It would be fun to see how things have changed. We’ve made it back to our first home in Tacoma, Washington, to find that it is now gone. But there are other places I’d like to see again.
And then I’d like to visit some new places—someplace with warm water and white sandy beaches. Chuck wants to visit Alaska; maybe we could do that too. Maybe I’d pack up all the kids and grandkids and head to Disneyworld. Or the Grand Canyon. Or go on a cruise. Oh, the places we could go!
It would be fun to do some remodeling. I like where my house is located, just outside of Grand Marais on a nice five-acre lot. But there are things I’d love to change if money were no object. If I won the lottery, I’d hire a gardener to fix up the yard. I’d put in tile flooring everywhere. And I would add on to my bedroom, building a huge walk-in closet with a spiral staircase leading up to a tower, with a hot tub on top, where I could soak while looking at Lake Superior off in the distance.
It would also be nice to have oodles of money to donate to all the great local causes—our schools, churches, the hospital, Care Partners, the radio station, the fire departments, the Scouts and more. Oh the things those organizations could do with more money!
And…one of my favorite things to imagine is the creation of the “Not a Jerk Award.”
Chuck and I talk about this whenever we start dreaming about how we would spend our lottery winnings, should we ever get them.
If we had millions of dollars to give away as we chose, we could travel around town or the state or the country, just living our life. And when we encountered someone especially helpful, say a really sweet waitress or an extra kind car mechanic, we could present him or her with an envelope stuffed with $1,000 cash.
That would be fun—and nice. The not-nice scenario would happen if and when we encountered a rude person.
Imagine this scene: We’re standing in line at the bank or a fast food counter. There are five people standing in line. Four are chatting quietly, checking their phone messages, reading the posters on the wall, politely doing something to bide the time. But the fifth person is griping about the wait, about the service, about just about everything.
That is when we would present the “Not a Jerk Awards.”
With a flourish, we would distribute envelopes stuffed with money addressed simply to “Not a Jerk.”
“Here you go,” we would say, handing out the envelopes to the people patiently waiting. “Thank you for not being a jerk,” to the first person.
“Thanks for not being a jerk,” to the second smiling person.
“Thanks for not being a jerk,” to the smiling and laughing third person.
“Thank you so much for not being a jerk,” to the stunned and delighted fourth person.
And then, to the fifth person, the complaining curmudgeon who does not qualify—no award, no money.
I know, it’s not a very nice plan. Because of our evil intentions, Chuck and I will probably never win the lottery. But that’s okay. We get a lot of enjoyment out of thinking about it. Revenge is sweet. Even imagined revenge.
Try it. The next time someone is exceedingly rude to you somewhere— it’s bound to happen in the next few weeks as people get stressed over the holidays—just say to yourself, “They’re not going to get the ‘Not a Jerk Award!’”
Picture yourself handing out monetary rewards to all the pleasant people around you. Picture their happy faces. Then picture the shock and dismay on the sourpuss’s face when you pass him or her by.
I guarantee it will make you smile. And it won’t even cost you a dollar.
Life being what it is,
one dreams of revenge.
Paul Gauguin
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