Here’s what I will do if I win the $1.4 billion Powerball jackpot:
I will go to the airport, stroll to the ticket counter, and say “I need a ticket for the next flight to Boston,” because I’ve always wanted to do that. I will take the next flight to Boston.
Once I get there, I will rent a convertible PT Cruiser in the most garish color imaginable and drive out to the western suburbs and find a hotel. The next morning, I will order the $24 bowl of raisin bran from room service.
In Boston’s western suburbs, there’s a huge arcade called Fun ‘n Games. The biggest prize they had when I was a kid was a Nintendo system with the Zapper light gun and it cost something ridiculous like 50,000 tickets so of course nobody ever won it and I’m sure it’s still sitting there 25 years later up in the rafters of Fun ‘n Games. I will win that Nintendo.
I will go to Fun ‘n Games and stay there from open to close, playing Skee-Ball for the entire time and sustaining myself with cans of Mountain Dew and packets of cherry Pop Rocks. I will return the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that, until I finally earn enough Skee-Ball tickets to earn that Nintendo.
When the 17-year-old Fun ‘n Games employee descends from the 50-foot ladder to hand me my Nintendo Action Set, I will hoist it above my head with both hands as if it is the Stanley Cup and I am a weary 40-year-old Ray Bourque on the Colorado Avalanche. I will parade with it straight out the door of the Fun n’ Games and unbox it before I buckle up.
I will proceed east along Massachusetts Route 9, Zapper Light Gun raised and firing in pure jubilation with the top rolled down in my garishly-colored rental convertible PT Cruiser. I will shout “I GOT THE ZAPPER, BITCHES!” as I drive beneath the underpass that used to be marked with graffiti informing the world that “Aerosmith Rocks Natick.”
I will get back home and realize I still have $1.35 billion to spend. I will spend a chunk of it on a two-minute long Super Bowl commercial that will air in the first commercial break of the second quarter. The entire two-minute commercial will consist of me sitting on my couch playing Tecmo Bowl on my new NES. It will claim 12th place in the USA Today Admeter.
With gobs of money yet to spend, I will grossly overpay to purchase all the MTV Networks from Viacom. I will immediately yank off the air all the hideous MTV reality programming that encourages all the 15-year-old girls in America to become alcoholic single mothers of three, and replace it with 24 hours of actual music videos. This will be widely hailed throughout America, so much so that a grass-roots campaign will begin to draft me for President of the United States.
I will be convinced to mount a third-party run. I will create my own political party. It will be called the “Fight for Your Right (to) Party.” Voters will be so disgusted with Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton that I will win the presidency with 37 states and 372 electoral votes. I will traverse the nation in celebration in an Air Force One decorated to look like a replica of the plane on the Beastie Boys’ “Licensed to Ill” album. I will invite local kids from every town to board Air Force One and play Nintendo with me. The kids of the 2000-teens won’t know how to play a Nintendo.
After my victory tour, I will announce that the job of President is a pain and I never really wanted it anyway. I will award the job to my running mate, New England Patriots quarterback and Super Bowl 50 MVP Tom Brady.
President Brady will lead the United States to unprecedented peace and prosperity. Meanwhile, I will retreat back home to my family where we will return to a quiet existence. I will spend my remaining $500 million dollars on lavish donations to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, as well as a giant house with a pool full of gold coins, which I will be able to afford because gold will only cost $19.99 an ounce plus shipping and handling by then, and into which I will dive, Scrooge McDuck-style, each morning.
I will spend the rest of my days traveling to speaking engagements entitled “Powerball and Skee-Ball,” and running the occasional marathon. My speaking tour will be sponsored by Mountain Dew and Pop Rocks.
And that is what I will do if I win the $1.4 billion Powerball jackpot.