How I Will Stay Rich After I Win The Lottery

By Aubrey Bellamy January 8, 2016

I have never been rich before. I am 30, which means I have not been rich for 30 years. I have loads of experience not being rich. If I could apply to Being Rich, my resume would fly to the top of the stack based on how many years I’ve put in.

That’s not how the lottery (or, um, anything?) works, though. You know this, you’re familiar with the lottery and how one might broach participating in and subsequently winning it. “The Lottery” I am referring to right now is the current Powerball drawing for $1.5 billion (estimated cash value $930 million) that is set to take place on Wednesday, January 13, 2016. I have bought exactly one ticket (random numbers) and have decided I’m going to win.

As far as I can tell, the secret to being rich — after getting rich, haha — is staying rich. Even I (again: not a rich person) know that. For this I have two plans.

Bury $500,000.00 in the desert

$500,000.00 is an arbitrary amount — as arbitrary as an amount of money I have never had even cumulatively can be, anyway. It seems like a lot to me, but I also understand it to be basically nothing compared to the $1.5 billion I will be starting with.

I think I will put it in one duffle bag, though a briefcase might withstand the elements better. I haven’t considered denominations yet. An extremely cursory Google search has told me that it is in my best interest to create separate stacks of $10,000.00 (one hundred $100 bills). Okay. That’s 50 stacks which is less impressive than I thought it would be, if I’m being honest. I guess money really can change a person. Who knew.

I’ll house my paltry stacks in a metal briefcase, like from the movies. I will pick a spot in The Desert (fun to imagine what you think I consider this is) and take a weekend getaway (even more fun to imagine now) to it with the boyfriend who will be given to me when I become rich. We will innocuously Instagram a diner, a pool, our crisp white (rumpled!) bed sheets, and maybe an animal, or similar (see: lizard). “They deserve it!” — you, re: us. On our trip we will also bury $500,000.00 somewhere.

Despite turning out to be physically unimpressive, $500,000.00 is still a lot of money. As long as I remain surrounded by the right people, if “all I have” is $500,000.00 buried in the desert, then not only will I never hit zero, but I will also never not be rich.

I make a movie

Because I am rich now, I can greenlight any movie I want. I have good taste, and a knack for storytelling, too, so every movie I make will be a hit. For example:

A woman (30, newly rich) and her boyfriend (20s/30s, assigned to her, Jake Gyllenhaal-type) on a journey to bury $500,000.00 in the desert.

While in — and on their way to — the desert, they encounter three or four absolute Characters. One is played by Jon Hamm as one is always played by Jon Hamm. Because I am rich, I can afford him. Also I’m “funny” and he loves that. He’s the second character they come across, but he shows up at the end for one last laugh. He loves to do that, also.

There are hijinks! A lizard gets stuck… somewhere in a body! (Maybe not even the body of a lead, maybe not even an alive body!) The couple has a fight [:(] and they get separated! One of them sees something that reminds them of the other person and is like, “We really are so silly for fighting on our trip and getting separated!” It probably will be the guy who makes the first move toward reconciliation because I will write the woman up until that point as naturally unforgiving and unsentimental. They reunite and kiss and then someone (not Jon Hamm, not yet) reminds them about burying the $500,000.00 (without SAYING “you have to bury $500,000.00” because it’s a secret) so they can’t have make-up sex yet (it’s implied they will later). They bury the $500,000.00 and they laugh.

In a post-credits scene of “the future” two young hotties who look strikingly similar to the leads (it’s their kids) are in a real financial bind. How they’re in a bind, I do not know. I’m actually really disappointed in them. They find a note from their beautiful mother that reminds them about how she always said “when you have $500,000.00 buried in the desert you will always be rich.”

(This is like Arrested Development. It’s fine, I’m over it, and you will be, too. It’s also gonna be executed, like, very differently!)

The note will be written on the back of a map because their hot mother was a fucking nut. (A woman of 30 writing a letter on the back of a map in 2016? Only 90s kids will get this.) The two idiots will — share a look — and say in unison “a rich fucking nut, though!” and dash off into separate cars, each with one half of the map. They don’t know yet that they are supposed to work together, like their striking mother always wanted.

They both drive by a very aged and hitch-hiking Jon Hamm who shrugs to camera after not being picked up.

Then there’s a sequel that someone else will pay for, and it will make double the money of the first even though it’s half as good. (I’ll step aside from the project over “differences.”)

On the off-chance I don’t win the lottery on Wednesday I also have another plan.

If I see a single movie come out for the rest of my life that

takes place in the desert, or mentions it in ANY capacity
features a lizard
has a female protagonist in her early 30s
has a post-credits sequence that leads into a sequel

5. mentions the numbers five, hundred, or thousand

I am suing the fuck out of Hollywood.

❤

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