Column: Something About Nothing

Sigh! Oh fiddle. I didn’t win the Mega Millions lottery. I had such plans for that money.

First, I was going to pay off my bills, then I would have paid my children’s house mortgages off and set up college funds for my grandchildren. I know first should have been giving money to my church, but I suspect it doesn’t want lottery winnings. Next on my list would have been to set up an organization that buys houses and lets homeless families live in those houses until they get back on their feet. The organization would also help them again become self sufficient. I have a problem with homeless children in our country.

I would like to think that is what I would do with the bulk of the winnings, meaning put it to good use helping others. That is what I would like to think I would do, but there is that little thing called greed that lives inside of each of us. I often wonder if I won a huge Mega Million lottery if the greed and spendthrift inside of me would take over and I would spend all the money irresponsibly.

For instance, I hardly ever buy lottery tickets for the drawings. However, this time when I visited the store to buy a Mega Million ticket I also bought a Powerball and a Hot Lotto. I have no special numbers so I let the machine pick. I also bought a couple of scratch tickets.

It was as if I was in the grocery store to purchase one item and I came out with a cart full of groceries. It was greed popping up inside of me. At the grocery store it is hunger that makes me buy a cart full of groceries whether I need them or not. The lottery-ticket buying was a different form of hunger.

I won on none of the tickets. That should tell me something.

I have never wanted to win Mega Millions. I have wanted to win enough money to pay my bills, possibly retire comfortably and be able to afford my deductibles so I can go to the doctor when I am sick or even have a healthy exam.

Who in our financial positions could even imagine what we would do with millions of dollars? It is totally out the realm of my rational thought. What in the realm of my irrational thought are the repercussions from a windfall of millions and millions of dollars?

I would worry that someone would kidnap my children and grandchildren and hold them for ransom. Would we be able to stay in our home or would it be impossible to have privacy anymore? Would we know who our real friends are? I suspect they would be those who didn’t ask us for money. Actually those who didn’t ask us for money would be those I would spoil and gift.

I have seen money cause so many problems in families when it comes to death and estates. Families are pitted against one another worried that they won’t get treated equally. I wonder if Donald Trump’s children are the happy family that is portrayed on TV or do they too have insecurity problems when it comes to money. I do not know that millions of dollars would be a blessing to my life or my family.

I read of the lifestyles of the rich and famous. I look at the huge houses and wonder about the unlucky employees that get to clean those houses. I don’t imagine their owners do what many of us do when we have had someone clean our houses; we clean the night before to get things ready for our house cleaner. It didn’t work for me; it defeated the purpose of having someone clean my house. If I had a big fancy house it would be a mess like my little nondescript house because I would feel guilty having someone clean.

I don’t envy the rich and famous. They always seem to have someone following them and bashing them in the news. Can you imagine the stress of trying to keep track of all the employees you would need to manage your millions and all the toys that you bought with your millions? Then there would be the problem of trying to keep up with all the other millionaires. I am also a jeans and T-shirt person, and I cannot see myself attending the red carpet in my designer dress. I could never could walk in heels so my designer dress would look awfully funny with my granny shoes.

I guess I am lucky I did not win the Mega Millions lottery. I couldn’t handle the stress or the notoriety. But please just send me a small jackpot at the casino, enough to tide me over in my old age so I can keep myself in Tums. Wait, first I have to go to the casino. I haven’t been there in a year or two either. Do you suppose I would have the same trouble I have at the grocery store and the lottery-ticket store? I would go in for one pull of the slot machine and …

 

Wells resident Julie Seedorf’s column appears every Monday. Send email to her at thecolumn@bevcomm.net.