You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.™
A 640 million dollar jackpot.
America has lost its mind.
It’s a frenzy like ants swarming a honey covered picnic.
24 hour news channels have reporters camped out in front of cash machines doing play by play.
Office pools have become tidal waves, with co-workers walking around with stacks of papers and hand written names on buldging envelopes filled with dollar bills.
No work is being done. It’s like the opening day of the NCAA basketball tournament on steroids.
This national obsession is a kaleidoscope of humanity.
Homeless guys, toothless guys, shopping cart pushers, bag ladies, bus drivers, fry cooks, wall street tycoons, NBA superstars, hard hat wearing construction workers.
Every person you know bought a ticket.
The mega million drawing is friday night, and the world has come to a screeching halt.
Craziness is spinning in the air like a hope tornado.
How crazy is all this? A Washington Wizard basketball player, all ready making millions a year tweeted this: “U’m about to drop $10,000 on the lottery and cross my fingers half way to a billionaire if I win.”
Every other facebook post shows someone taking a picture of their ticket and declaring “I am the winner!”
Yeah right. You’re a winner like the pillsbury Dough Boy can beat Usain Bolt in the 100.
News stations are interviewing people in line asking the hard hitting question like what would you do if you won?
Hmmm?
Would you come to work monday? Would you hire a playboy model to represent you in all things carnal?
Seriously, what would you do?
One co worker told me he would start heading East and not stop till he got back to where he started. He didn’t say how he was traveling or where he was going. When you have 640 million dollars that apparently doesn’t matter.
I guess from Nashville, heading East, his first stop is Cookeville. Good meat and 3 there I understand.
What about your wife?, I ask.
He laughed. He didn’t consider her. They’ve been married a long long time. 640 million can give ya amnesia.
“She can go west and maybe we’ll meet for a night somewhere in the middle.” He laughed a demonic laugh that only comes when stirred with 640 million dollars.
It is a dream. It is the ultimate dream. A three quarters of a Billion dollar dream. It’s so astronomically large, it’s impossible for the average brain to calculate.
It’s like dividing Pi by the common denominator of a hypotenuse triangle.
Wow that is some esoteric mess.
640,000 million dollars. It’s stupid. It’s crazy. It’s a wet dream in the center ring of the circus that is my brain.
I have 3 tickets. 3 measly tickets. I bought them myself, mostly because the ticket collector at my work told me that I had to pay 18 dollars to get into the work pool.
I said screw your work pool. Take your 18 dollars and cram it where the odds don’t shine.
At 176 million to 1, I have as much chance of winning as finding a person named Hymie Bernstein in a Chinese restaurant.
I think my 3 tickets have as much promise in this molecule of infintesimal insignificance as any of my office pool comrades.
That means we have as much chance of doing the lottery jig as the Poodle peeing on the fire hydrant down the street.
The experts say that there is a 95% chance that someone is going to win the Mega Millions. So many people are playing, certainly every combination has been covered right?
So why not play. You probbably won’t win, but what if you did?
That simple premise has fueled a chaotic run to local convenience stores to buy tickets at a dizzying pace. It is like a financial diaherrea of excess where people are dreaming about Caviar dreams and Maserati menageries.
I am glad I have my 3 tickets, and I’m glad I am not with my co workers. If they win, they have to split it 100 ways. If I win i am the instigator of insatiable insanity. I become Napoleon and the world is my game of Risk.
Of course I will be charitable and good to those I love. It’s too much money not to share.
But the numbers just don’t lie. The mathematicians say you have a better chance of:
Dying from a bee sting. 1 in a 6 million chance.
Being struck by lightning. 1 in a million chance.
Being wiped out by an asteroid. 1 in a few million chance.
Getting a royal flush in a five card draw. 1 in 649,740
Having identical quadruplets. Odds: 1 in 13 million
dying in a plane crash. 1 in 29 million chance.
I would like to add to this list.
You have a better chance of crapping a ceramic mug.
You have a better chance of crying orange juice tears
you have a better chance of bike riding to Hawaii
you have a better chance of teaching your dog to alphabetize his milk bones
you have a better chance of getting the cat to scoop his own litter with a spatula.
you have a better chance of getting the hot neighbor girl to shave your back hair
you have a better chance of growing a 2nd thumb on your first thumb.
you have a better chance of sending morse code to terrorists with your eye lids
you have a better chance of losing weight on a milk shake and lard diet
you have a better chance of buying front row seats to the 2nd coming.
And i’ll tell you this; you have 640 Large in your wallet, you have dramatically improved your chances of picking up that hot chick at the club when the bar tender hollers “last call for alcohol”.
So there you have it America. A chance to dream, a chance to escape, a chance to feel like Bill Gates for at least a while.
Breaking News: The numbers are in:
2 4 23 38 46 (23)
Let me look at my 3 tickets. Well I have a 38. Damn.
I guess it’s back to work Monday.
And that is crazy.™