Do not – repeat, do not – rush out to buy tickets for tomorrow night’s Powerball jackpot drawing.
Of course it’s tempting. The
jackpot is $350 million after all. But it’d be a waste of your time and hard-earned
money because that jackpot is mine. How can it not be? I deserve it. I’ve
waited patiently for years. It’s my turn.
I met with my tax accountant
this morning. He advises that I take the money as a lump-sum payout – around
$150 million after taxes. That’s not quite as much as I was hoping for but you
know what they say: “Nothing in life is certain but Tom Dryden winning the May
15, 2013 Powerball jackpot and taxes.”
Here’s how I’m planning to
spend it:
Beach house:
I already live in Paradise – southwest Florida – so I’ll stick around but
am going to do a George and Weezy and move on up. Actually, in this case I’ll
be moving on down – about 10 miles south to an 8,299 square foot house on
Gordon Drive in Naples that has 125 feet of Gulf of Mexico frontage. I went to
an open house last month and told the listing agent he could expect to hear
from me late this week with an offer, which certainly caught his attention. The
asking price is $19.9 million but I’m sure that when I explain I’m paying cash,
the owner will let me have it for $19 million even. I’m told I will be eligible
to join the Port Royal Club once I take possession. I’m unclear if I’ll have to
pay extra for that. Hope not.
NetJet: I won’t want to leave my beach house all that
often so it’d be silly to throw away $20 million to buy a new Cessna Citation
jet. Instead I’ll simply purchase 400 hours of flight time from NetJets for $4.4
million and, when I want to go somewhere, pay another $10,000 an hour for
pilots, landing fees, fuel, etc. I suppose I could fly commercial but I like to
take the dachshunds wherever I go and they hate to be crammed into those carry-on
cages.
New wardrobe: My wife says she’s sick of
seeing me wear the same clothes every day and that I need a new wardrobe. I think
she’s being overly critical. After all, I put on a different t-shirt every day provided
she remembers to throw the three I already own in the wash. The yellow one
says “Ft. Myers Beach,” the green one says “Naples” and the blue one says
“Bonita Springs.” Granted, they have some stains on them and the Naples one is
frayed. So, to make her happy, I’ll go back to the same flea
market where I bought those in 2009. They were on sale –3 for $10. The economy is better now. The price has probably
increased so I’ll budget $12. I don’t need new shorts or sandals. The ones I
have are perfectly fine. Nobody at the Port Royal Club will notice.
Family members: My mother, mother-in-law, brother,
sister, two sisters-in-law, brother-in-law and eight nieces and nephews will be
happy for me – they know how long I’ve waited – but wouldn’t be human if they
weren’t a wee bit jealous, so I’ll give each of them $2 million. That’s $30
million. I should probably give my great nieces and great nephew something too,
but don’t want to encourage any more breeding in this family.
My sons get nothing because
I don’t want them to become snot nose rich kids but, between us, Christmas at
our house is gonna be great. They’ll inherit what I didn’t spend when I die anyway,
by which point they will have hopefully won their own jackpots.
Grand-dog sitter: My youngest son leaves his Shetland pony-size dog, Topanga, alone in
his tiny apartment all day while he works. I don’t want to worry about her any
more so I’ll happily pay for a full time dog-sitter to take Tope to the park and,
every month or so, to the airport to put her on her grandpa’s NetJet for a
visit.
Hired help: I’m not going to be able to manage that house on my
own. I’ll need a full-time maid and groundskeeper. Watch the Naples Daily News classifieds for the
“Help Wanted” ads I’ve already booked for Thursday’s edition. Feel free to
apply. Must like dogs. Tom Dryden is an equal opportunity employer.
Working capital: The way I figure it, I’ll need to
set aside $50 million in tax-free munis (the Eaton Vance Muni Income Fund pays around
5 percent) to generate money to pay for food, electricity, property taxes
($158,000 a year on my beach house – yikes!), insurance, dog-sitters, the maid,
gardener, NetJet fees, yadda, yadda. I’m
going to try not to dip into that capital because I want to someday leave all of it, in addition to the other $46 million I intend to contribute as soon as I
go to Tallahassee to pick up my check, to the newly-established …
Dryden Foundation for Homeless Dachshunds: My wife and I have talked it over and agree we want
to help homeless dachshunds with my – I suppose I should say “our”—winnings. Our
Foundation will buy a ranch somewhere and hire a group of veterinarians and
dog-lovers to staff the place. Every dachshund or dachshund mix that winds up
in a pound anywhere in North America and isn’t adopted will be brought to the
ranch to live out his or her days in grand style. Remind me to make sure the
ranch isn’t located within 20 miles of neighbors because, if it is, they’ll
complain about the noise just like every neighbor we’ve ever had and we’ve
never had more than two wiener dogs at a time much less 10,000 of them.
Now that you see all the wonderful
things I’m planning to do with that money I know you agree: I deserve to win.
And I’m going to. Not that I’ve given that much thought to it.
Oh, by the way, every Facebook
member who has read this far and gives this lengthy post a “Like” gets $50,000.
Or, if you have already won your own jackpot and prefer to pass up
the cash, I will see to it that a room at the Dachshund Ranch is named after
you.
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