So, Pancake Land and I have been talking about playing the lottery for a while now and yesterday we decided to take the plunge and buy a ticket. The only problem was which one to buy. We have Powerball, Megamillions, Cash 3, Cash 4, the Arkansas Raffle, and a wide array of scratch offs. We ultimately settled on a Powerball ticket and two of the Raffle tickets. Keep in mind, a good chunk of this money will be potentially paying for me to go to college, so I felt a little obliged to chip in. Anyway, our Powerball did not hit. Big surprise. But, that is not the one that intrigues me. I am fascinated by the brilliance of the raffle. Okay, check this out.

The state of Arkansas is selling 500,000 tickets to a raffle at $10 a piece. Once all of the tickets are sold, the state draws two winners who each receive a million bucks. (That’s a one in two hundred fifty thousand chance!) So, let’s do the math really quickly.

500,000 tickets x $10 a piece = $5,000,000 net sales – $2,000,000 grand prize winnings = $3,000,000 profit

Brilliant. Plus, there are a a bunch of other instant cash prizes. Like for example, every twenty fifth ticket wins $20. Guess how I know this. That’s right. I won $20. Which paid for the raffle tickets. So, we pretty much got two free chances to win a million dollars. For the record, a million dollars in bank account that earned 4% interest would give you a little over $3000 a month in interest alone. That’s like a salary of $36,000 a year for having your money in an account at a bank.

After we bought the tickets, we pretty much did that thing where we talked about how we wouldn’t tell anyone about winning and how we would never do anything ridiculous with the money. These statements were followed with fantasies about a house with a bowling alley, a movie theater, a Wipeout obstacle course, and something about a Snow Leopard. A house that, by its very existence, would tell everyone we know that we won the lottery.

“Let me get this straight. Yesterday you lived in a small cozy house in the hood and today you live in a 1,500 square meter (?16,000 ft.²) house with a bowling alley and a movie theater. Bank foreclosure, my ass. Wait. Is that a Snow leopard?”

Don’t worry, you’ll hear about it if I win the lotto. My liaison to technology and all things post 1985 will introduce themselves at some point. Of course they will be born after Ghostbusters was released (the younger generations tend to be more technologically inclined than me) and will, therefore, not be a real person. But, needless to say, I will be followed around by a person much younger than me who will answer my cellular telephone if you happen to call it. All of my posts would be typed up on a typewriter and then transcribed by my liaison onto the innernet. I wouldn’t see a computer or a cell phone or an iPod. I would just ride around in the back of a tan 1985 Buick Skylark. Skylark for life.

Enough of this fantasy world. I still have to go to work today. More soon. ~SC