We Didn’t Win the Lottery

The owner of a convenient store in Preston, Idaho was interviewed about his selling the Mega Million tickets for last night’s lottery.  Still a chance to purchase.

They don’t have the lottery in Utah, and so one has to go across the border to make purchases.  Over half a billion dollars.  It is mind boggling really.  I think 20,000 would be mind boggling.  Our account has never seen more than 4,000 at a time (and it went quickly.  Always does)

So Roland comes home yesterday and recaps the news story and asks what I would do with that much money.

“Well, first I would pay off all our bills.  I would buy new cars (or drivable cars rather) for ourselves and for Bill and Kayla (as they are also experiencing the sluggish dying car thing) and move.  Definitely move.  We could purchase a duplex near Jenna’s school.  Bill and Kayla could live on one side and we could live on the other.”

“You’ve got half a billion dollars.  Half a billion.”

Roland always has been a dreamer.  I can’t fathom that much.  Wouldn’t want to. 

“Why don’t we just give a huge chunk of it to the church – let them figure it out.”

“They won’t take it”

“Oh, yeah.  Hmmm . . .”

The reason he had asked me was because there was a guy from his office who had decided to drive up to Preston yesterday.  He had asked his co-workers who would like a ticket.  Roland contributed a whole dollar.  He showed me the ticket.  Impressive.

There are actually a lot of sick babies in my sister’s ward (a geographical boundary for the LDS church) that are in hospitals, and you know that comes with an expensive price tag – even with insurance – though I don’t imagine anyone living in that area really has that great of insurance.

Bill has a nephew who’s been in and out of hospitals since birth – not to mention all the medical expenses of Bill’s late wife.

Now the possibilities become endless for us.  We’ll hire an attorney and pay bills anonymously.  We can move out of state and Roland could become a shark and make decisions about investing in unique products. We can make even more money which we could give to the Church and we can still assist and support charities.

We could . . .

But alas, we did not win.  We didn’t have enough to collect a consolation.  Well, cool.  I didn’t want all that responsibility anyway.