Kim du Toit is not interested in winning one and a half billion in the lottery:
Here’s the thing. The cash option on that beast was about $500 million, making the lucky winner a semi-billionaire. And that life-changing thing is what stopped me from buying a ticket.
Don’t get me wrong: it’s not that I wouldn’t be able to spend the money — I have plenty of relatives and friends, all of whom I could make extremely happy/wealthy. But honestly, I don’t want to change my own life that much.
Believe me: change it would. With 500 big ones to your name, you become a target for all sorts of undesirable people: kidnappers, scam artists, robbers, whatever. You might think that you could disappear from public life and become anonymous, but you can’t; that sum of money is just too big. So you’d have to hire lawyers, accountants, financial planners and personal bodyguards… and that all adds up to a massive lifestyle change.
That’s the exact line of reasoning I express to my boys when we pass by the grocery store courtesy counter when the jackpots get that large.
I mentioned to my brother yesterday that the winning ticket was sold in Arkansas, and he said he’d have to check his numbers–he lives not far from the state line, and wasn’t sure what state he bought his tickets in.
Now that would be more my luck: he wins a billion dollars, and I’m the one kidnapped for ransom by some Eastern European syndicate or South American cartel. I mean, we’re close, but are we a million or ten million in ransom close? I’d hate to discover.
