Money and Finance

I just read a story with some poetic justice. In Boston, Mary Grasso, a nanny for a Boston multi-millionaire, won the $197,000,000 Big Game lottery. She now has more money than her employer.

“Oh, Mary, could you serve the aperitif?”

“No, why don’t YOU serve the aperitif? And light my cigarette, you punks, and listen up. Because I’m going to go over some of the changes around here.”

At least she bought her own ticket. Be careful if your friends at work talk about “sharing the winnings”. A waitress at a Waffle House in Alabama won $10,000,000 in the lottery. The winning ticket came from a customer who regularly gave out lottery tickets as tips. Four other co-workers, whose tickets did not win, claim they should share in the $10,000,000 because they always said that “if any one of them hit, they would split.” Well, one of them hit. And she wants to split, all right-to a big house on a hill away from her “friends”.

In 1998, 13 Ohio machinists won Powerball’s biggest prize ever- $297,000,000. They purchased the tickets in Indiana where Powerball is played. The group regularly pooled their money for lotteries. One guy dropped out of their “Lucky 13” club three months before the group hit the jackpot. He said that even though he wasn’t in the group when they won, he’s not bitter or jealous. He said he knew they would take care of him.

“Uh, sure, we’ll take care of you. Here, dude, here’s $10. Have fun down at the all you can eat buffet.”

Most lotteries aren’t worth $297,000,000. If you do get into a lottery pool, limit the people involved. You don’t want to hit a million dollar lottery and end up with a share of $350. “Hey, I won the lottery. I’m going to go buy some stamps.”

It seems like people don’t get excited about a lottery until there is at least $20,000,000 to be won. “What? Only $10,000,000 this week? Forget it. That would barely cover the down payment on my yacht.”

People say they would avoid the media spotlight if they won. It is true that every scavenger from here to Athens, Ohio would come out of the woodwork to hit you up for their “cause”. But I think most people would not stay in hiding. They would want to meet with the media. So they could look in the camera and say, “we were very lucky”, which means, “Nah, nah, nah, nah, we won $100,000,000 and you didn’t! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Hey, who won $100,000,000? Oops, it was ME! Me, me, me, me, me! I won and you didn’t!”

What is the first thing you would buy with all that cash? A new car? A big house? A yacht? An airline mechanic in Montana told the press the first thing he was going to get was a chainsaw.

“Hey you are our lucky lotto winner! What are you going to do now?

“Uh, I’m going to Wal-Mart to get a chainsaw.”

A chainsaw? Listen, Lumpy, you can buy the chainsaw company.