I Won The Lottery!

No, I really did NOT win the lottery.  I do, as so many people, wonder about what I would do with the money if I did actually win the lottery.  I have heard that your chance of being struck by lightning are far greater than winning!  The first thing I would do (if I ever bought a lottery ticket, and won,) would be to hire a lawyer!  Then I would see how fast I could rid myself of that money, as I happen to have a phobia about money.  I believe it is called Plutophobia, fear of wealth! Rightly so, as no one ever kidnaps children of poor families, and when you are not wealthy you can be sure your friends are not just after your money.

A million dollars does not go as far now, as when I was a kid.  A good size winning, would have to be anywhere from 100 to 150 million. Naturally, I think I would be sure that my family would receive some of it, but not enough to ruin them.  (Or cause someone to consider kidnapping their youngsters!)

Then I would set up very generous annuities for my School system for my City to use!

Then I would have a big time giving it away, anonymously!  I would be on the lookout for people in need and donate to them, in an amount that would get them back on their feet. (I think I would want to hire investigators to see how these gifts were handled.  I just have that kind of curiosity! Like the people who bring a gift, ring the doorbell and then hide, so they could watch the reaction of the person receiving the gift!) I have a feeling that some people would take care of their problems and never get back into financial trouble again. But I think there might be some who would not learn from their past, and would soon be in the same situation. I doubt I would help them a second time. That would be like putting the money down a rat hole. And I do believe there would be a better use for it. Some people you just can not help!

I like the idea of giving scholarships.  I would probably do a lot of that sort of thing.  Perhaps set up large annuities just for that purpose.  Fun to think about.  As I said, I would have to hire a lawyer first, because I am not sure about the legality of some of my ideas!  Perhaps one could not legally give a School system or a City a large annuity with strings attached.  Certainly, I would want some restrictions as I surely would want to avoid the possibility of greed allowing people in charge of the funds to use them unwisely or taking possession of sums for their private use!

Lots of ideas roam around in my head.  But while I am on the subject of “Lotteries”, I have begun to wonder about the Texas Lottery.  Recently one of the Dallas News broadcasts, aired a list of school districts, in Dallas and the surrounding area, that are deeply in debt, amounting to many millions, and the inevitability of cutting back on teachers, and other personnel, some pay cuts and enlarging the number of students in a classroom.

I scratched my head and thought about this.  It seemed to me that I recall when the “Texas Lottery” was going to benefit our schools. You know what I think?  If instead of purchasing those tickets, everyone would just donate that much money directly to their schools we would all benefit from that. People are funny!  They would balk at raising school taxes, but give no thought to the amount of money they waste each year on things like the lottery!  Just a thought!

When our schools are in trouble, we are all in trouble. 

Hold on a minute!

I had one devil of a time last week trying to get in touch with my electric company. When I called customer service I received the computer service!………..You just can NOT talk to a person any more!  First, after going through the menu of numbers to press for each category, I found that none of the categories covered what I wanted to inquire about.  So I punched one, hoping for a person.  Got another recording and given another menu.  Again, none fit my needs, so I punched another number and was told that I would be put on hold for, the computer voice said, “ 37 seconds” and that sounded good enough to me.  I really thought I was getting somewhere.  Computer voice broke into the elevator music that was annoying me and said that my call was 2nd in line and that, I would be on hold for 56 seconds……..I am loosing ground here.  But, I waited, and the third time the computer informed me that I would have to hold only 37 seconds, I blew up.  I also hung up.


I spent more time on the Internet trying to get to a site that could handle my problem………No luck there either. (Did, however, find a site that listed a myriad of complaints against the company! That was interesting reading.)

Day 2. So, I started all over and pretty much the same thing happened when I called the Customer Service number.  I finally pressed 0, and the computer voice came back on the line and asked me to hold while a representative could come on the line.  Wow, I thought, finally going to talk to a real person.  WRONG!  The phone for the rep. rang one time and then silence.  I waited, nothing happened!  I waited some more, then pressed 0 again.  Well of course that was useless.  I got a dial tone!  Tried the whole routine again later and got the same result.

I decided I would try to find a number in the Phone book and see if I could get somewhere that way!  I called the 800 number that was listed and the operator told me that that number had been changed!  It is the same number that is printed on my statement, so I did not know what to do next.  Decided to write a letter to the address of the Company located in Dallas.  Snail Mail!  But perhaps that old fashioned method would get some results. However, by this time I had forgotten what it was I needed to talk to them about.  But, I do have an envelope addressed to the company, in case I remember what was so urgent a question I had wanted to put to them, earlier.