No doubt you felt a surge of Gopher Pride when you learned that a Waseca couple hit the Powerball. The big lottery jackpots always seem to go to people in far-away Cooter County. Bufus! Put down the banjo and git out of the tree, your daddy done won us some Britney-size money!
They end up blowing through $150 million in a few years, which isn't surprising: You take an ordinary feller, give him unimaginable wealth, and he will justify building a catapult that throws Ferraris in the air so he can shoot them down with a shoulder-mounted missile launcher. Sure, he'll have an accountant who begs him to do this once a month, twice tops, but you know, Ferrari Skeet is like eatin' peanuts.
A local winner piques our interest. First, where did they buy it? Because that store's luck is all tapped out. Second: Is it one of those 16-ladies-at-a-pork-plant deals, where everyone gets enough to buy a car and send a kid to college?
Because that's about as inspirational as learning that someone found a 3-ton bale of unused Gold Bond stamps.
Most important: Will they keep their jobs? We cannot imagine why they would. It's like being given the gift of flight and announcing you'll still fly coach.
You could understand if the person had some incredibly cool job. "Johnson, who sprays body glitter on supermodels at fashion shows, has said he will keep his job." But no: the winner in Waseca is a heavy equipment operator, and says he'll keep doing it.
You can understand why he thinks he will, of course. We are what we do. This is why retired men end up sitting at Denny's, staring out the window, eating suicidal quantities of bacon, longing for the days when they meant something. We take pride and pleasure in our work and the community of co-workers -- right up until the moment when money spoils everything.
Imagine if it happened to you. Imagine the break-room conversation. So, moneybags, how's it going?
