The sign over the highway said the MegaMillions jackpot was $140,000,00. "What's your dream?" said the slogan. Uh, winning $140,000,000? After that I'm sure something will come to me. The next time I passed the sign, it was something like $10. You feel disappointed in yourself for not being stupid enough to play, as if the only thing more annoying than people who waste money on the lottery are the ones who have the gall to win. Maybe I'm wrong. In these grumpy, nervous economic times, it actually looks like a safe investment. Destitution insurance with low premiums. Hey! Like you ever collect on your life insurance.Then you think: Oh, 140 mil sounds big, but you take the lump sum, which is about half that, then half goes to taxes, 50 mil goes to the state-mandated Stupid Decisions Fund (they spend the money on strippers, cars, drugs and investments, like putting $500K into a chain of buffet restaurants where the food just runs down a trough and you eat on your hands and knees) and eventually you only have $17 million, and you spend your day hearing from grade-school classmates who need a new knee or roof, and now there's 2,395 Facebook pages dedicated to telling the world what a cheapskate you are.
You don't trust the banks or the market so you put it all into an enormous slab of gold which sits in the garage, which means you have to park the car on the street and it gets towed, and they don't take gold at the lot.
So what's your dream? Winning $280 million! Same problems but you can rent a storage locker for the gold and keep the car inside. Curious about the MegaMillion winner, I went to the website; some guy from Michigan got it. Whew.
I also saw the rules: "For an additional $1 per play (and per draw, if you purchase multiple draws), you will receive the regular non-jackpot prize amount MULTIPLIED by the Megaplier number that is drawn." If you can figure that out, you have sufficient knowledge of math to know you shouldn't play the lottery.
But I will. Just this once. Unless they change the rules and pay off in pennies. I mean, I'll do the work required to spend the money, but asking you to count it seems petty.
jlileks@startribune.com • 612-673-7858 More daily at www.startribune.com/blogs/lileks
