May 21, 2013

The Game



Last night I went out to dinner with two of my male friends. We ate steak and chips (apparently this is what men do) and we played my favourite game (which was only fair, because the men got their steak and chips).

My favourite game does not involve dice or a board, because board games are excruciatingly boring (and besides, I always lose). In my favourite game, absolutely everyone wins, because that is the point of the game, and what makes it so thrilling.

It is The Lottery Game.

You’ve all played The Lottery Game. I’ve played it dozens of times. And yet each time, the game is a little more exciting, and each time, my imagination runs a little more wild.

Last night’s version of The Lottery Game began as it always does. With a question.

 “Do you ever just wonder what life would be like if you won ten million dollars?”

“YES!” I yelled, practically jumping off my chair, and choking on a chip in my zeal.

“Um… okay,” said my friend Rich*, recoiling slightly in his chair. I realised that the question had been posed rhetorically, and I tried to regain my composure.

Naked Woman Depicted Not Actual Blogger
“I have too,” said my friend Buck** happily, and shovelled in another bite of cow.

“What would you do?” I asked.

“I’d play guitar all day.”

Hmmm. I figured I’d just hire someone to play guitar for me with all my money, but perhaps I was missing the point.

“And what about you?” I asked Rich, who was gazing wistfully into the distance.

“I’d get a butler!” he pronounced, and it sounded eminently sensible.

“Which would give me time to spend up to three hours a day in the gym,” he continued, and I decided that my friend was seriously unhinged.

“And I would travel!” he added, which was redeemed him a little. “I would travel through Europe, and backpack through India, and…”

No no no no.

“Why would you backpack through India?” I demanded. “You’d be a multi-millionaire! You could stay at the best hotels! You could hire people to carry your luggage!”

“But I like backpacking,” he said shamefully, and the table fell silent.

“What about you?” Buck asked me finally, and I was very glad he did.

“Well firstly,” I announced, “I would get staff for absolutely EVERYTHING.” My eyes began to glaze over as I warmed to my topic. “I would get a maid, and a chef, and a chauffeur, and a nanny. I don’t want to do ANYTHING that looks like work, EVER again.”

My fantasy began to overwhelm me, and adrenalin surged through my body. “I want to play with my kids, but not have to lift a finger! I want to sleep until noon and then read in the bath! And I want to get a massage every day of my life. A two hour massage. No. A three hour massage! And then another bath!”

I stopped. I realised that I was bouncing in my chair, and clapping my hands with glee. And Buck and Rich were staring at me as if I was totally deranged.

Sometimes, it seems, even The Lottery Game can produce losers.

*not his real name, but this is what he would be if the game was real

**also not his real name, but I assume you knew that

32 comments:

  1. Steak & Chips?!!! Why wasn't I invited? ;)


    If I won 10 million dollars, I wouldn't change much about my life. I'd stop working (but I only work part-time, so that wouldn't change much...)


    I'd buy a slightly bigger place with a better view (but probably in the same suburb...)


    I'd spend more time writing and making music and being generally creative - that's what I like to do with my spare time... I don't need holidays or cars or luxuries... I'd just like more time for what I like to do...


    Oh... and I'd probably eat steak more often... because a good steak is expensive!

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  2. Oh yeah I play the lottery game - you know 'let's pay off everyone in the family's mortgage and then with the left over money ... Oh wait, there won't be left over money. But hey, doesn't matter'. And thn my husband (Captain Killjoy) will enter the fray:
    Him: Kel you don't want to win lotto - you shouldn't get money for doing nothing
    Me: no worries honey, I just won't tell you when I win

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  3. But if you do something good with the money you get for nothing, doesn't that mean you've got money for something! :)

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  4. Oh yes! This is a great game! We do the 'what would you get first' variation. I love the idea of someone to wash my hair and give me a head massage - every day. My friend wants a gay housekeeper. (She used to have an incredibly fastidious gay friend whose house was her dream.) I toss up between a cook and a cleaner. Not having to think about what's for tea ever again would be nice. Having someone to make the school lunches. And do the shopping! Someone else to worry about the nutritional value of the breakfast. Actually, come to that, someone to MAKE breakfast. I can't tell you how wonderful it would be to come out and sit at a table with a hot pot of tea and toast in a rack and little pots of jam and piles of fruit laid out with a little knife for peeling next to them. And on weekends, chafing dishes on the sideboard with bacon and eggs and kedgeree and so on. And coffee. I suppose I would need to buy a sideboard, but I would be willing to go that far. And someone to dust. And...
    Okay, I need to stop now. But great game!

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  5. We play - where would we live? On a farm? On the local canals? Lake? Beach? Then move on to what car would we drive...

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  6. I'm glad you raised the stakes (steaks?) to $10m for this game - it might get you an apartment in Darling Pt. Seriously I doubt $10m would change my life greatly. It would not stop my husband from working but I would travel more.

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  7. I'd move into a luxury hotel. And then do nothing. I aim high.

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  8. I can't believe I didn't think of that.

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  9. It would sure as hell change my life!

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  10. YES!!!! THE BREAKFASTS WITH THE LITTLE POTS OF JAM!

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  11. I will eat steak with you. But chips. Not mash.

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  12. It's all good!


    (Let's not start another pizza controversy ;) )

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  13. Oh God I play this game every week as I purchase my ticket. It is spent before it is even won....actually I've never won, so it's never spent. But one day...one day!

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  14. Was toying with getting someone else to take my place in races so that I can get better results (not hard, will grant you that), but then I thought that with all that money I could actually bribe all the other entrants just to GO SLOWER so that I could plod along regardless and look amazing compared to the rest of the field.
    Good grief, I am so shallow.

    LCM x

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  15. My husband and I worked out that if we wanted to maintain our current (NOT extravegent but perfectly comfortable) lifestyle plus have a good inheritence for our 2 kids plus travel twice a year we'd need $11m - this would last the rest of our lives. This doesn't include major extravagences, daily massages, gardeners and chefs, but does acknowledge that we own our own home. So really, $10m isn't gonna cut it and you need to aim higher Kerri!

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  16. JJ my baby brain cannot handle that kind of paradoxical thinking right now!

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  17. Ha, love this fantasy but I don't buy tickets so it's unlikely to happen, (note to self - buy weekly lottery tickets) I would feel too shallow spending it all on me, so to salve my conscience I'd be a bit philanthropic - a kind of modern day Lady Bountiful, bestowing my largess on family and friends. But not too much or they'd become grovelling subjects who wouldn't really love me for myself! Afterwards, well I'd go shopping...

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  18. That sounds like the best to me too - never to have make lunches or breakfasts again! Someone to massage and wash my head! And the full body massage too of course. I love little pots of jam too.

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  19. I play lotto with a group of guys at work and we have won zippo and spent about $3000. But I am not getting out because when I do they will win the big one. And I am desperate for a nanny to get my 4 month old to sleep!

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  20. I just read that you're looking to sell your house for $4.5m, so I'm not sure you really need to win the lottery!! Let one of us poorly paid chumps win it instead :)

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  21. Miranda @ Sweet Mother of BlogMay 22, 2013 at 8:58 PM

    Oh the journeys I have been on when allowing myself to dream thqt impossible dream. The Lottery dream. I have a house in Spain, a house in Melbourne and a house in London. Properties covered. I set up a company which nurtures undiscovered singer/songwriter talent and allows them to develop and to be supported financially while they do so. I find something philanthropic and useful to do. I sort out my family and keep the win as quiet as possible. Massages and sleep-ins and some home help now and then with the smalls. My greatest regret? Years and years ago I had an extraordinarily vivid dream that I had won the Lottery. In the dream I rang my parents and my brother and asked them to meet me for dinner. They did. I then rather mysteriously asked them something like: "If you could do anything with your life right now, what would it be?" What was irritating in the dream is that I could not get any of them to give me an answer because they were just so suspicious about why I was asking them this over this very auspicious dinner date. I kept trying to steer the conversation back to what they might want out of life, so that I could surprise them with the news that i had won a ludicrous amount of money and could help them in a major way. But none of them would pave the way for the big reveal! Anyhoo, I should have bloody well gone and bought a ticket the text day but i didn't. Silly silly me. That's my regret!

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  22. I never even buy the ticket! So you're doing better than me!

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  23. HA! That is so fantastically devious!

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  24. Yeah... skip the bounty and go straight to the shopping!

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  25. You do realise if you'd saved that $3k you could afford a .... No, never mind!!!!

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  26. OH NO!!!! Now I regret it on your behalf!!!!

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  27. Kerri, I can't believe you didn't think of buying the Nutella factory....

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  28. We often do this - dream about what we'd do if we won a truck load of money. It usually ends up with realising that t doesn't have to be 10 million, it could be 1 million, 100 thousand, geez $10,000 would be nice wouldn't it. But let's dream big for a little while longer because I get excited by this too and bounce up and down in my seat at the thrill of it all.

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