What Four Bucks will Buy You

Wednesday I purchased a couple of Powerball tickets for the first time ever.  The jackpot was at $1.5 billion, so I decided to waste $4.  My rational mind knew the tickets would return nothing.  It also knew the huge jackpot was a one in 260 million long shot.  My chances of being struck by lightening, crushed to death by a falling vending machine, or bitten by a shark in Kansas were greater than winning the Powerball.

I purchased the tickets around 5:00 PM, about 5 hours before the drawing.  For those 5 hours, my irrational mind took over and began to plan how I would spend the windfall.  I only had 5 hours to decide what I would do with such a large amount of money.  I figured after paying taxes and tithing, I would be left with around $600 million.

My first spend would be to give Joe Biden $100 million for his effort to cure cancer.  Knowing that Obama didn't pick Biden to lead the effort for his brains, spending other people's money is the only tool Biden has to accomplish anything.  Now I'm down to a half billion dollars.  That was quick.

My family came next.  I decided that I did not want to parse out a million here and a million there, but instead do one big thing that could benefit my entire family.  My plan was to buy 10 mansions along the southern coast to become the Bryant compound on Bryant beach.  Terri and I would live in one mansion, the big nice one, and my entire family, blood and extended, would have access to the other nine nice but smaller mansions.

Then I realized that living next door to my extended family might not be a great idea in the long term, so I increased my buy to 20 mansions and planned to tear down every other one.  That would give us all a little more elbow room.  20 mansions at $5 million each burns another $100 million, a small price to pay for the Bryant compound.  Down to $400 million in the bank.

Knowing you can't spend the rest of your life just sitting in your mansion staring out at the ocean (maybe you can), the compound will need an entertainment district.  Nothing too fancy, just a bowling alley, a movie theater, a KC-style BBQ joint, and a music bar.  If other entertainment is desired, we can just jet to the nearest coastal city with a tourist trap and night life.  So that's an entertainment district for $50 million, a Learjet for $25 million and a private runway for $25 million. Down to $300 million in the bank.

Next a car pool.  A dozen Hummers, a couple of Corvettes and a Lamborghini for the weekends should do.  That's less than a million bucks.  What a bargain.  We can jump straight to the annuity used to pay cleaning staff in perpetuity.  Say, one maid per mansion equipped with a lifetime supply of Swifters.  Another $20 million spent, with $279 million left.  Maybe it's time to be frugal and put the rest in the bank.  Don't want to be too flamboyant.

That's what $4 buys you.