What would you do if you won the lottery?

I don’t play the lottery because I’m not lucky. I know people who are lucky, and I am not one. I went to the casino once, lost the meager amount of money I had to play with in about 15 minutes, and was ready to spend more. So, not lucky and not too smart, either. There are a couple of people I work with that can take $200 to the casino on their lunch hour and come back with $1500. Consistently, too. They have all the luck.

Winning the lottery sounds like trouble to me. Everyone needs money, and quite a lot of it these days, for shelter, food, transportation and health care. But millions of dollars turn some people into careless spenders. My husband and I used to watch Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. The things that those people would spend money on were disgusting. A stuffed elephant leg, a million dollar couch, gold plated toilets for example and weird and awful things, tasteless things, very wasteful things. Oh, and an airplane, hanger and pilots were popular. Those I could understand, actually.

Alfred Hitchcock had an episode on “The Alfred Hitchcock Hour” called “The Monkey’s Paw, a Retelling.” It creeped me out as a very young girl, and was pretty horrifying for its time. In the episode, we see an older couple that somehow are gifted a dried out monkey’s paw that can grant wishes. Their first wish is for money. So, their only son is killed in an accident and they receive insurance money in exactly the amount they wished for. Of course, the couple is mortified and grieving, and angry at themselves for their greed. They decide to use the paw to wish that their son was alive again. So they make the wish and immediately there is a knock on their door. The wife fumbles with the locks, hurrying to see her son, while the husband is yelling for her to leave the door closed. He shouts that their son was crushed, that she will not want to see him like that. The husband grabs the monkey’s paw and wishes their son dead again, just as she opens the door. I was terrified we were going to see the son’s mangled body, reanimated but not living, crushed and faceless. Back then, they couldn’t have shown a zombie on national television, this was 1965 after all. But everyone watching KNEW that the dead son was coming and even with that last wish the couple’s nightmare would never end….

I guess my point is that if you suddenly receive a great, vast amount of money, and you don’t know how to manage a great, vast amount of money chances are good that not much good will come of it. Maybe it’s just sour grapes because I am not lucky or rich. Perhaps some people would become philanthropists and astonish the world with their caring and generosity. But some may find themselves in a Monkey’s Paw scenario, learning that getting everything they think they want only makes life unbearable.