When I win the lottery

Once Powerball starts flirting with 100+ million, workers in Virginia make a lunchtime exodus to Washington, D.C. to buy their tickets. Because anything less than three digits before the word "million" just isn't worth the effort. When nobody wins and the jackpot increases in astronomical increments then the main topic at the water cooler becomes, "If I won the lottery". The subject matter makes for good conversation because it allows us to dream beyond our balsa wood office walls and also learn how others less deserving than ourselves would spend it. Some would strive to make the world a better place, others would make life easier for their families, and others would pay disgusting amounts of money for really high class whores.

The lottery teaches us very important lessons about winning, excess, and mortgaging your house on Powerball tickets in hopes of living the American Dream. If you think your life wouldn't change because of winning then you are either; filthy rich already, just heard from your doctor that you have 12 hours to live, or believe O.J. Simpson is innocent. Millions of dollars will change you, trust me, I want to know. I overheard a lottery discussion the other day while sleeping at my desk and I thought this would be a fun exercise to really delve into the details. I've always talked about it on the surface but never obsessed about it. I think obsession for this topic is important, especially since I plan on winning the lottery. A man has to have goals in life.

So let's say I won. First things first, how would I quit my job? For the overwhelming majority of Americans who work there's always that sense of worry upon quitting; bridging the financial gap between jobs, getting vacation paid out, or double checking the corporate 401k for a vested status. Imagine no financial burden upon resignation, how would you quit? So many options and so little time. There's the option of making a huge scene during peak work hours. Get everyone's attention with a bullhorn, air your grievances, then politely drop your pants and urinate on your laptop while it's plugged in so everyone can see it short circuit. O.K., that's a little too aggressive and involves an inevitable lawsuit. The last person you want to give your money to is the company you work for. Plus people might be laughing for unintended reasons when you drop your pants.

There is a super stealth mode that yields greater satisfaction. The object is to treat the day you are quitting no different than any other day except for the fact that you now have an offensive amount of money in your bank account. Come into work, turn on the office lights, fire up the laptop, and grab your coffee. Be sure to answer emails and drop a few phone calls to let everyone know you are around. When the clock strikes noon, tell all your co-workers that you have to "run an errand". Promptly throw on your jacket, walk out the door, change your home number, change your cell number, and never talk to another co-worker again for the rest of your life. Leave them all guessing. I take so much pleasure in the thought of doing this. I know, I'm sick. It's hard to type in a straight-jacket using only your nose to hit the keypad.

Shewww...quitting was fun, now I have the rest of my life. Based on projections from life-insurance actuaries I have approximately 45 years left in me. Here's my list in no particular order:

• Learn Italian
• Learn Spanish
• Learn Japanese
• Hit all 50 states in a cross-country trip with my golf clubs
• Join a country club
• Take piano lessons
• Take saxophone lessons
• Take golf lessons
• Take boxing lessons
• Become a black belt in Jeet Kune Do
• Attend the Superbowl every year
• Attend the Final 4 every year
• Attend the Masters every other year
• Go camping in Alaska
• Get into insane shape, run a sub 5 minute mile
• Write a book
• Write a screenplay
• Go to film school
• Make a documentary
• Make a short-film
• Try a stint as a late night D.J.
• Create my own cable access show
• Buy a lake house, give all immediate family members a key
• Buy a beach house, give all immediate family members a key
• Start a foundation to help consumers battle debt
• Give an obscene amount of money to my high school
• Give a little bit of money to my college
• Become a venture capitalist for my friends and family

I came up with that list in ten minutes. I realize several things bullet pointed above cost little to no money. But unfortunately time is money and that's what having alot of money can give you, the luxury of doing the things you want without worrying about the time it takes to do them. I have been babbling so long I almost forgot to go buy my ticket. See you later, keep your fingers crossed.

Brown Bag Mathematics

There are thousands of ways to save money and a million ways to spend it. I'm faced with the imbalance of this equation every night of the working week. A challenge that I consistently fail when I decide not to pack my lunch before going to bed. Such a simple task could annually save me a significant amount of money. But the other side of the grass is so much greener.

Eating out has a major upside, getting outside for fresh air, a mental break from your work, drinking a yard beer of Guinness. And the food factor: thinly sliced deli meat from Boar's Head, springy lettuce, hot waitresses, and the option of eating a fresh Cobb salad. These are honorable reasons to venture out for lunch. But when I look at it strictly from a money standpoint, it seems like a short-bus move not to brown-bag my office meal.

Let's do the math, shall we? Last time I checked, there were 365 days in a year.

• throw out Saturdays and Sundays, 260 working days
• subtract Federal holidays, 249 working days
• minus vacation for a mid-career hire, 234 working days
• sans sick days, 229 working days
• take away days with beautiful weather to call in sick and play golf, 225 working days.

The number 225 seems so harmless by itself, let's do some multiplication, shall we? The average lunch in the D.C. Metropolitan area is not cheap unless you don't have an appetite due to chronic diarrhea and/or you have to eat through a straw. Otherwise, if you are ready to chow, start memorizing your PIN number for the ATM visit, you'll need it. Let's review from a Deli perspective:

• sandwich - $6, chips - $1, soda - $.75, indigestion...priceless or $7.75.
• 225 working days multiplied by $7.75 per day equals $1,744 per year.

I'm comfortable in saying that a total for eating lunch at a slim $7.75 is a conservative estimate. Let's stop being naive and have a real corporate clone lunch. Let's get a pager in the shape of a coaster that blinks, a waiter, and a bill. Now we're living large. Oh, our table's ready:

• entree, drinks, tip, uncontrollable flatulence.....$16.00.
• 225 working days multiplied by $16.00 per day equals $3,600.

The final step is to morph the conservative and liberal estimate into a hybrid amount. Half of those lunches are spent peeling back the white paper wrapping on the chicken salad sandwich at $7.75. The other half is having a beautiful waitress remind you how old and perverted you are while munching on a salad the size of a campfire at $16.00. Divide 225 days by two and assign the divided amount by each dollar amount then combine them and vee-oh-la, $2,671.88 per year. That's alot of coin....what's available for approximately $2,671 in 2006 dollars:

• 42" widescreen plasma HDTV
• Full set of high end golf clubs (including driver and golf bag)
• Down payment on a Harley Davidson
• American Express gift card for $2,671

Why not just pack a lunch? Now I won't save the full $2,671 because my grub money has to go somewhere but I could guesstimate a savings of $1,500 per year by brown-bagging it. A loaf of bread costs $2.99, a 24 count of sliced cheese is $4.99....oh f*ck it, I'm not doing this math all over again. Just trust me on this one, you'll save money by packing your lunch.

Why is it such a herculean effort? I can find time in my predictable schedule to brown-bag it. It'd be easy to squeeze 5 minutes between my TiVO'd Family Guy and falling asleep on the couch to make a sandwich. It has the appearance of being a breeze but it is such a royal pain in the ass, kinda' like changing banks. Lousy leftovers, deli meat on the cusp of expiration, not to mention my 70's style refrigerator that was engineered by a midget contortionist from Cirque du soleil. I was in traction for a week from grabbing a jar of pickles hidden in the back on the second shelf. Damn midget engineers. Then it hits me, it's not about the act of making my lunch, it's the baggage that goes along with it. Being stuck at my desk for the whole day, breathing in the oxygen backwash from 1,500 co-workers, and toggling between the internet and my excel spreadsheet when someone walks by. There has to be a compromise.

Fact is, I shouldn't eat out every day of the week and coax a possible Lipitor prescription. On the other hand, I shouldn't be inside the office every day of the week suffering from mental health atrophy. The happy medium is to eat out two days a week and pack my lunch three days a week. On the days I do pack my lunch I'll just find a secluded corner in the break room to cozy up to my latest issue of Maxim, great articles...seriously.

Now if you'll excuse me I have to think about packing my lunch. Or maybe I should just go to bed, it's getting kinda' late.