What if You Won the Lottery

What if You Won the Lottery

What would you do if you won the lottery? What would you do if you inherited five million dollars? What if?

I guess we have all played that game of fantasy at some times in our lives. I remember friends suggesting that they would pay off all the debts of family and friends, buy dream cars for themselves and others, and make other people's fantasies come true. We were all very generous with money that we did not have.

Programs like “The Millionaire '' on TV, news stories about surprise large winnings or inheritances, and regular advertising gimmicks like the Publisher’s Clearing House all fed the fantasy. They were and are popular because dreams, hopes, and wishes are important elements of life and living.

I remember one of these “what if” conversations at a goodbye party at the Golden Bull Restaurant in Gaithersburg. It is gone now, but it was a favorite steakhouse of mine for years. They had a great salad bar. Anyway, it was during that conversation that I first suggested that it would be rewarding to frequent restaurants around universities and find worthy and financially needy wait staff to whom I would give thousand dollar tips. That idea has stuck with me ever since.

This memory is relevant why? Well it’s relevant because I won the lottery, not one of the really big lotteries, but big enough for me to indulge many of my fantasies. In my world $21,000,000 after taxes is a very big deal.

Time and death denied me the opportunity to pay off mortgages or buy houses for parents and siblings, but I have cleared student debt for some and set up college education accounts for others. Closer to home my own children no longer have mortgages and I have established trusts with regular payouts for them and my grandchildren.

By the way, at current housing prices, and college tuition and housing costs being 50 or 60 thousand dollars a year, a million dollars doesn't go very far anymore. Thank goodness I don’t have many grandkids.

Meanwhile, I am sitting in a restaurant in College Park, Maryland, near the University of Maryland, eating fried shrimp and drinking Negra Modello cerveza, all the while watching my waitress tend her tables and interact with the customers.

In my pocket are two envelopes. In one I have two hundred dollars and in the other two thousand dollars in cash. I will give one of these envelopes to my waitress before leaving, which one she gets is dependent on how she does her job while I am here.

So far, she has a lock on the larger envelope.

I have learned to give gifts to specific waitstaff, plus leave a regular tip, because tips sometimes go into a tip pool which is later divided up among all the service staff, but a gift is to that specific person, and goes home with that person. By giving both a tip and a gift, the gift goes where I want it to go.

Carol, that’s what her name tag says, visually checks my table and notes that my beer is about three fourths gone. “Can I get you anything else, Sir?” she asks. I lift my glass and show her the level of emptiness. “Another Modello?” She asks, confirming my order. I nod “yes,” and moments later she returns with my beer and a new frosted glass. She partially fills the glass before placing it in front of me and picking up my now empty original glass.

“Carol, are you a student at the University?”

“Yes, I’m a junior in pre-law,” she answers.

“Well good luck with that.” I said. “We need more lawyers.”

She laughed good naturedly.

I finished my beer, Got Carol’s attention to ask for my bill, paid my tab and tip with cash, not wanting to leave my name on a charge slip.

“Carol,” I said, handing her payment for the meal, “I want you to have this, too. It is a gift, not part of your tip”. I handed her the $2,000 dollar envelope on which I had written “A Gift for Carol.”

“Sir, you don’t need to…” I interrupted her, “Yes I do.”

My final words, “Good luck with your studies.” And I left, already looking for a place to eat tomorrow night.