Money.

It is rare that we play the lottery. When I worked for Xco I was part of a lottery pool – we never won much beyond a free ticket or $5 and it sucked. At the same time, the idea of my coworkers splitting a few million and me left behind to rot at my desk? Not appealing.

Coffee and I haven’t been much more lucky than that, ever, either. But when the lottery gets really big and chubby, I get the urge to daydream a little. I consider the $2/ticket to be a purchased daydream. When the 6/49 lottery went up over $40 million last week, we carefully selected our number, bought a ticket and set the daydreams into motion.

My favourite times are on Friday nights or early Saturday mornings – before we’ve checked to see whether our numbers have been selected. We’ll curl up on the bed together and inevitably I’ll say, “What’s the first thing you’re going to do with the money?” Sometimes Coffee is perfectly logical and he’ll talk about waiting for a week before cashing in the ticket, to avoid doing something rash. I roll my eyes. What good is a daydream if you’re going to be PRACTICAL about it? I get much fancier, much faster.

If my ticket wins tonight, and I wake up tomorrow with $40 million to my name, here’s the plan.

1. Cash in ticket. Hope to avoid the press while doing so.
2. Purchase a bunch of electronic gadgets. I love electronic gadgets. Expensive ones!
3. Disconnect phone altogether. I’d have no need for it anymore, at all.

and after a brief period of avoiding the world while shrieking a lot, I’d:

- give my very close friends a sum of money. Only the *very* close friends, as defined by Coffee and I (we’ve discussed this, and we’ve named names, in order to prevent everyone and their mother from showing up and demanding money from us.)
- speak to our financial planner, Virginia, and get some VERY IMMEDIATE ADVICE on investing
- put our house up for sale
- put all belongings into secure storage (or sell)
- go to Willow’s house for a month (pay her well for this intrusion!)
- purchase at least 100 acres of land, somewhere in Canada
- build a small and exceptionally ‘environmentally friendly’ home on said acreage
- build small, equally ‘friendly’ cottages to start a commune
- purchase/procure all items required to live ‘off the grid’
- build a barn for some animals and obtain said animals
- buy books. endless stacks of books.
- buy a condo in nearest major city for those occasions when I felt ‘urban’
- travel to various far-flung places
- take lessons, classes and courses in anything and everything

NOW who wants to be my best friend? ;)