If I won the low-budget lottery…
Look at the beautiful graphic Mike made to represent the fact that I ripped off his idea to sardonically participate in Friday Five.
I already see that I am the good cop here, and he is the bad. (Also, he picks the donuts. I kick the people’s heads while he beats them with the night stick, keeping my back against the video camera lens.)
You have just won one million dollars:
1. Who do you call first?
My boyfriend, whose pseudonym is Tad.
2. What is the first thing you buy for yourself?
Either a house, or else the first thing I see that I want at the Galleria. That’s our big ritzy mall – the one with all the designer boutiques. The one Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Lopez shopped at this week while they were in town. The one where all the ghetto people (me included, sometimes) go to gawk at things they can’t afford.
Hopefully, they’ll have something I want. Most of the boutiques probably only make tiny clothes, and I’m not too big on jewelry. Maybe the first thing I buy will be a pretzel at the food court. Normally I don’t eat pretzels, but I would assume that, as a millionaire, I’d be playing tennis often enough to waylay any fat that a pretzel might bring on.
You know, now that I think about it, a million dollars isn’t that much money. Maybe I should go to Memorial City Mall, instead.
3. What is the first thing you buy for someone else?
I’d buy Tad whatever he wanted. So, either a really expensive pair of pants at Armani Exchange, or else a Mercedes. His fantasy is to show up at the Mercedes dealership with a briefcase containing an amount of money just under the sticker price on his favorite car. He says he’d slam the briefcase down on the salesperson’s desk, announce how much it contains, and give them several moments to decide whether or not to hand over the keys.
I said once that if I ever won the lottery, I would make this dream possible. So we’d probably have to stop by the Mercedes dealership before going to the Galleria. But I wouldn’t buy myself a car there, because I’m not really into that brand. If, however, they had one of those ’70s-looking retro Jaguars with the chrome around the windows, in a good color, like they did last time we went there to slobber on the cars, then I might buy that, and then my answer to Question 2 would change.
All this is assuming my kids aren’t in town that weekend. If they are in town, then we have to go to Best Buy before anything else and buy them all the video games and consoles in the whole freaking store. That’s all they want – that would make their lives complete.
4. Do you give any away? If yes, to whom?
Hmm. If it’s only a million, then I’m probably not going to give any away. The minimum for giving it away is… um… let’s say $9 million. If I got that much or more, I’d feel obligated to give money to my dad, my brothers, and select cousins. I would hand them their set amount after they each signed contracts saying they’d never ask me for money again, even if they’d ended up spending all the money in one night on fireworks or DVD rental fees or a Blue Oyster Cult reunion tour or something like that.
And I’d give some money to the non-profit where I used to work. Maybe. But only if they built a shrine in my honor – maybe a golden statue of me with eight arms, each of the arms doing something good for the community.
If I got more than a million but less than $9 million, I’d lie about it and say I’d only gotten one million.
Just kidding. I probably would give those people a small amount of my paltry one million, even though they don’t deserve it.
5. Do you invest any? If so, how?
Yes. I don’t know how. Real estate? That’s what financial advisors are for. I’m not getting paid enough to think this hard.
This question wasn’t good. The fifth one almost never is. A better choice would have been, “Which celebrity would you call, thinking he/she would now sleep with you, only to realize that winning a million dollars doesn’t make you fuckable by a celebrity in any way, shape or form, after all?”
My answer is Gael Garcia Bernal.
I bought a lottery ticket right before writing this entry. It’d be sweet as hell if I won, after having prepared myself so thoroughly by answering the Friday Five. Maybe if I win all seventy million, I’ll make a $25 Paypal donation to fridayfive.org.
Nah. Screw them.
