When I woke up this morning and checked the news, as I am wont to do as a Very Serious Radio Man, I saw that someone (as of this writing, unidentified) won $100,000 on a Powerball ticket sold in White Plains. 

That's close enough for me to ponder what it would be like to win a ton of money. I mean, $100,000 is nice and probably life-changing money, but I'm talking next stratosphere money. North of $10 million. North of $50 million. Enough money that, like, Jay Z and Beyonce might actually view you as a human being, you know? Money with which you might be able to buy a house in an enormous gated community in Malibu or in the Hamptons and almost feel welcome. Enough money that you could donate a bunch and be referred to as a "philanthropist." Enough money that your great-great-great-great grandkids wouldn't have to work. 

So, I thought about it for a while and I ignored the two roadblocks to my daydreaming:

  1. The fact that I have never bought a lottery ticket in my life and therefore couldn't actually find myself in this situation and,
  2. The fact that I'm extraordinarily, otherworldly boring financially and would immediately hire a team of attorneys and money managers to put my money in a trust and invest it in such a way that I could live off of the dividends and never actually touch the initial lottery winnings

With that in mind, I thought of a few things I would do if given the opportunity to blow a couple hundred million bucks.

Marist_Student_Center
loading...

Donate Enough Money to a College to Have a Dorm Built in my Honor Called "Deuce's House of Bad Decision-Making"

Look, what better way to establish your legacy than by donating to education? I believe in the future. I believe in the youth. I also believe that there's a weird resentment toward people whose names are branded upon the academic buildings you dread going to while you're on campus. So why not have my name in the place that people remember most fondly during their time at school? Since I attended Marist, that would be my first choice, of course, but I'll settle for whatever school let me have free reign when naming the dorm I donate.

And yes, I would also be living there.

Scrooge McDuck
Enesco via Amazon
loading...

Fill a Pool With Money and Dive in Like Scrooge McDuck

This one is easy. Anyone who grew up with DuckTales saw the iconic Scrooge McDuck dive into money and wanted to do it immediately. I don't know how much this would hurt, considering the fact that for this to have any impact whatsoever, it would have to be coinage and gold coins aren't a very forgiving surface for diving. Good thing I've got all that gold to pay for the hospital bills I'll need for the broken neck I got from my money swan-dive!

Phantom Corsair
AutoLit via Amazon
loading...

Buy a Phantom Corsair

You see that badboy up there? That's a Phantom Corsair. That's the coolest car of all-time. It's also a one-of-a-kind prototype made in 1938 by a guy who actually got to live out the fantasies we're discussing: Rust Heinz--yes, the ketchup heir--designed it, and had its creation commissioned at a cost of $24,000 (according to Wikipedia, $370,000 in today's money) with the plan of getting it on the market as a high-end automobile. He unfortunately died before it could go into production, so they could only make one of them, which now resides in Nevada at a museum.

How Batman is that thing, though? I mean, it's probably wildly unsafe and difficult to drive, but it's worth risking all sorts of sharp, pointy interior hazards turning you into a pin cushion after a mere fender bender in order to feel like Bruce Wayne.

So, what would you do with your money?

More From Hudson Valley Post