Bonzai: Thoughts and Expressions

Vapor Millionaire

There has been raging debate for the past several years about bringing a lottery to North Carolina. It has been defeated each time it has been introduced as a bill but by slimmer margins each time. I personally don’t care if the state has one or not but I find it amusing how they are trying to sell it to the public as an “education lottery”. Just the phrase itself is goofy to me but, personally, I think they would get further along if they would just tell the truth and say that they want a lottery because there are more people that want to gamble than there are those that don’t. Whatever.

I was day dreaming a little bit about what it would be like to be the sole winner of, say, a $100 million jackpot. What would I do? Hm… who knows for sure? Immediately I started doing the math… the cash layout (after taxes) of a single payout would probably be roughly $50 million. Ok. After some serious consideration, I figure the first person, aside from my wife, that I would talk to would be a lawyer so I could create an insulated shield between me and everyone that is going to come out of the woodwork. After securing the money to its most useful location, I think the next thing I would do is disappear.

I have discussed this with my wife a little bit… “How long should we disappear for?” “Would a year be enough for everyone to stop looking for handouts? Two years? Five?” We sort of decided that we would disappear for a year and then test the waters at that point. My wife promptly asked: “Where are we going to disappear to?” Good question. Not sure. She likes sandy sunny beaches. I was born with a tattoo near my neck that says “Keep out of direct sunlight”. Hm. “How about Scotland?” I asked hopefully. She shot it down pretty quickly because it’s basically raining all the time and the winters can be pretty miserable. Even the cool castles and the whisky trail didn’t do much to persuade her.

Her idea of paradise closely mimics the climate in Hawaii. She was there once before, snorkeling and swimming with dolphins and whatever. Yep sounds cool, but then what? Your stuck on an island. In the middle of an ocean. With a volcano. Nice vacation, but for a year or more? Not for me. I’m more of a history nut. As much as I really don’t like the French, I think I would like to tour Europe and see some of the thousand year old sites that are there. My roots trace back to a French knight of the Crusades and it would be cool to walk on some of the same land as my ancestors. She wants hot? How about Spain? Italy? Greece? Mmmm… some uzo sounds good right now…

Hey! Wake up!! Get back to work!! Spend your vapor millions on your own time!!!

posted by Bonzai @ 1:42 PM