Fractured Fiction

Days of Wine and Posers - (continued)

Remember when I told you I won the lottery and I’d get to it in a minute? Welcome to the minute. Two months and four days ago I won the lottery. Winning the lottery feels exactly like you think it would: incredible, fabulous, freeing and you keep saying, “I can’t believe it! I can’t believe it!” Then finally, you believe it and it changes your life forever. I opted to take the money in a lump sum and I put it in a money market account until I decided whatever else I wanted to do with it. The only extravagant purchases I made were the wine, the $50 a piece wine glasses, some new clothes – oh and my new 4.2 million dollar home on the beach. It sounds like a lot, but really it isn’t – I still have plenty of money left.

This new house is my DFZ or decision-free zone, a safe haven where I can contemplate my future or not. I had to move from where I was living. I couldn’t very well stay in my first floor $200,000 condo where I was kept awake night after night by the fornicators with the squeaky bed on the floor above me, and expect to make rational financial decisions about my vast fortune, now could I? A person needs a good amount of shut-eye to think clearly. I don’t want to end up like some of those other lottery winners I read about on the Internet who lost everything:

Willie Hurt of Lansing, Michigan, won $3.1 million in 1989. Two years later he was broke and charged with murder. His lawyer says Hurt spent his fortune on a divorce and crack cocaine.

Ernest "Knucklehead" Johnson won $8.2 million in the Pennsylvania lottery in 2004 but after investing his winnings in an auto dealership specializing in canola oil powered cars, he now lives quietly on $450 a month and food stamps.

Texan Francine “Jugs” Fitzpatrick won 16 million in 2005. Fitzpatrick was munificent to a variety of causes, giving most generously to the Save the Ferrets foundation. Her downfall came when she invested in a clown catering service that was successfully sued for 16.2 million when one of the clowns twisted a long black balloon into a suggestive shape in front of a wealthy client’s wife, leaving the wife with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Fitzpatrick’s family has turned against her as well. “She’s a dumb ass,” says son Wordell, “We used to be able to walk into any Wal-mart in the area and buy what ever we wanted. Now, after the lawsuit, we’re just regular folk again and Daddy's back to work as a machinist. We all want to kill her."

Poor slobs. Let me tell you about some more of my ‘peers’. After winning the mother lode, I got invited to the Millionaire’s Ball – a party for all the lottery winners. Talk about a motley crew; half of them looked like they’d been sitting in Darwin’s waiting room for most of their lives and the other half I’m sure had no idea what the word ‘motley’ meant. I suppose that’s because people who are already rich don’t play the lottery; it’s mostly a game for the lower-socio economic strata of society; a fool’s game – at least that’s what my attorney told me right before he asked to borrow $40,000.

I’ve always heard people say that if they won the lottery they’d help out those less fortunate; donate to charity, send money to those starving, big-eyed kids on the TV commercials, etc.. But I can tell you first hand, that’s a healthy load of hoo-hah. Most of the winners I met told me they promptly went out and bought things like a Harley, a boat, a diamond necklace, or a monster truck. Not one person I talked to said they immediately wrote out a big fat check to the Save the Whales or the America Diabetes Association Not one.

I don’t pretend to be noble. I’m sure I’ll eventually donate to some good cause – but right now, I don’t give a rat’s ass. I want to have fun.

Before I won the lottery I worked as an electrologist removing unwanted chin and moustache hair from hirsute women. And believe you me, the minute I learned I’d won, I promptly pulled the plug on my epilator. Those people who say they keep on working at their regular jobs after they win millions of dollars should be bitch-slapped and forced to give the money back. It should be illegal to be that stupid and have that much money.

People always ask me how I picked the winning numbers. I think the trick is to have the numbers mean something to you – it’s gives them a special energy. Not like the ‘quick pick’ that the felonious looking cashier at the gas station punches in for you while he’s checking out your boobs. For instance, I picked 2, 3, 11, 12, 14, 41. Here’s why:

2 – the number of years a psychic told me it would take before I marry the man of my dreams (husband #2) in Hawaii.

3 – the number of friends I have that I can really trust
11 – the month my first divorce was final

12 – the day my first divorce was final

14 – the age mentality of my sense of humor

41 – my age

Lately, some of the people I’ve told my formula to tell me they’ve tried this method using their kids’ birthdays, anniversaries, stuff like that and then they report, rather peevishly, that they still haven’t won yet – like it’s my fault. So now when people ask I just tell them it was luck.

When I first moved in to my new house, the neighbors introduced themselves and welcomed me to the neighborhood. I even got invited to a house party. The hosts acted all hoity-toity and talked about investments and trips to Europe and what private schools their kids went to. Then later, some of the men, when they found out how much money I’d won – tried to hit on me while I was out by the pool having a smoke. Of course they’re all married, just like when I wasn’t rich. I pretty much keep to myself now.

I suddenly notice Barb is staring at me and she’s probably been talking to me all this time too. “Where do you go Amelia?” she asks.

I smile at her. “Hey, you wanna go to Tahiti? There’s this really cool cruise ship called the Paul Gaugin that goes there.”

“Sure.” Barb’s eyes are glassy now. “When?

“Hand me the phone.”

And like the Cyndi Lauper song says, money changes everything.

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