Apparently not, and I’m a little disappointed, I don’t mind telling you. It’s not every day that a $580 million Powerball jackpot comes along. Of course, that’s adjusted down to a meager $380 million if you take all the money right away rather than spreading it out over a 30-year period, which most of us 72-year-old codgers are not likely to chance. And that’s reduced almost by half by the jolly tax man. So now you’re down to a lousy $200 million or so. I mean, it’s hardly worth the bother.
In the good old days, everybody was thrilled to the gills contemplating a mere million dollar payoff, but that’s just pin money now. Before that, there was The $64,000 Question. And before THAT the now-laughable Sixty-Four Dollar Question. I understand inflation, but come on. And we’re just as bad—Siobhan, the pragmatic, no-nonsense scientist, never buys a lottery ticket. But there she was the other day, running into the friendly neighborhood V-Mart while I was in the Post Office. “I got TWO tickets,” she said. “Our odds are down to one in two-and-a-half million.” I guess everybody just wants to be part of the Great Event.
Being a woman of science, Siobhan can’t help wondering if certain scientific shenanigans, however off-the-wall, might be able to influence the Powerball draw. Like telekinesis, for example. Could someone with powerful telekinetic abilities suck up those little balls with the right numbers?
“I think you would have to be pretty close to the room where they were doing the deed,” I told her. “I don’t think telekinesis would work from New Jersey.”
“Well, they’re doing the drawing in Tallahassee,” she said. “That’s just a couple of hours drive.”
“Do you have some hidden powers I didn’t know about?”
“I’m not sure but I think I’d like to try.”
“Well, start with this pencil here. See if you can move it a couple of inches across the table.”
“Okay, I’m releasing the beam.” The pencil sits undisturbed.
“Maybe I just need to practice.”
“Good idea. Be ready for next time. There’s always a next time.”
What would you actually do if you DID win the lottery? A bunch of those lottery winners meet a surly fate. Just this morning, the TV newsman was telling us about some poor fool named Shakespeare, of all things, who had his fortune ripped off and was summarily kilt dead by his “financial planner.” I know these financial planners have a murky reputation, but gee.
The majority of lottery winners, of course, are not robbed and murdered. They just go broke on their own. Call it a lack of experience in handling money, kinda like Mike Tyson, who supported a posse of hundreds and bought everything that wasn’t tied down. Lottery winners do that, too. Wonderful friends and semi-relatives just pop up magically out of the blue. Investment counselors pull up in fleets. Pastor Dave could use a few bucks to renovate the sanctuary. It’s a cacophany of want out there.
The lottery advisors tell the winners to keep quiet about their good fortune, at least until they get their houses in order. This seems like a good idea to us. Just think how everything would change if everybody knew. Those nights when you might otherwise have left the gate open because it was cold and rainy—can’t do that anymore, there are varlets of every stripe in hovering mode. Kidnappers even. You might want to build one of those little huts like they have at the gated communities and install a burly marksman out there. And what about your friends, the people you can usually count on to give you the straight advice? Now, everybody would be careful to love you unconditionally. I mean, who knows when you might need some company on your luxury yacht trip to Nice, all expenses paid. It’s a dilemma. It’s probably a little bit like this to be a big movie star—thieves breaking into your houses, stalkers hounding your bones, madmen out to shoot you, batteries of psychiatrists on call to handle your angst. Who would even want to be a lottery winner with all this mayhem awaiting?
Well. Just in case any of you people out there in Arizona or Missouri who have the winning ticket are frightened and dismayed at the possibilities enumerated above, we here at The Flying Pie, altruistic as ever, are willing to consider taking them off your hands. Your lives will quickly return to normal, the pressure will be gone. You’ll probably live happily ever after. People often ask us why we are so willing to perform these outstanding corporal works of mercy, and honestly, we scratch our brains daily trying to figure that one out ourselves. I suppose it’s just a calling, a desire to remove the onus from the shoulders of our fellow man. Anyway, you winners out there have our number. Just don’t wait too long. Every second, more threats to your wellbeing further encroach. I think I just heard a knock at your door. A rather LOUD knock, too.
McPhee Is Dead! Long Live McPhee! (The ultimate shaggy dog story, including reflections on old-time dialysis, oppressive head-shop laws, Lum’s waitresses and overreaching Halloween parties. In other words: not unlike the rest of our articles.)
Somewhere in the neighborhood of 1980, the Florida Legislature passed a law banning the sale of just about half the stuff we sold in the Subterranean Circus. Before this, various cities in Florida and around the rest of the country had imposed a number of disparate edicts banning “drug paraphernalia,” most of which failed due to faulty construction or simple unconstitutionality. The Florida law, however, looked to be more of a threat and many stores prepared to close down or, at least, refine their inventory. As the dreaded D-Day approached, buyers invaded the stores in droves to load up on items they might soon be forbidden to purchase. At the Circus, we sold an entire case of the popular Club rolling papers in one day, something like fifty boxes, not to mention innumerable pipes, bongs and every other kind of smoking apparatus. A normal sales day at the store—exclusive of monies earned next door at Silver City—was about $1000. The last day of sales before the ban took effect grossed $4000. My stepson, Danny, and I sat on the floor of our house next door and counted small bills until the wee hours. Then, we decided to have a party in celebration of this historic event and to invite any and all of our customers who had helped make it possible. The venue would be rented from the YMCA—Camp McConnell just south of town on Rte. 441. The date would be Halloween night. We created an artistic poster to inform the public and posted it outside the building. We had no idea what we were getting into.
I arranged with Dan Iannarelli, owner of Dan’s Beverages on our corner, to have 35 kegs of beer delivered to the party site the night of this extravaganza. Dan said he’d give me a break on the price if he could be the co-host, a bargain to which I quickly agreed. Dan and I would go to the affair dressed in tuxedos, a singular experience for me, at least. I hired two different types of performers, a rock ‘n’ roll band and a mellower group headed by local pianist Jack Hayford, husband of Circus employee Layne, planning to rotate the two from eight til midnight. Then, I wisely assembled a cleanup crew consisting of about a dozen people who I felt might be relied upon to be still vertical at the stroke of midnight.
To state that this party turned out to be a roaring success would be something on the order of saying that Lindsay Lohan has been known to partake. People streamed in from everywhere, many in costume, filling the night with color and excitement. Irana came in from New York and Mike Hatcherson showed up from Colorado. Even an old enemy, Steve Lewis, who had unjustly sued me for his getting stoned and falling off a ladder (it was my building, after all!) showed up appropriately dressed as a pig. Unbelievably, we ran out of beer and Iannarelli hastily summoned an emergency shipment from Gainesville, forestalling a riot.
In the meantime, we had other issues. Nancy, a waitress from Lum’s fine food emporium, was having a little trouble with her boyfriend (and boss), who had become jealous of the attention being paid her by others and insisted she leave with him. I kind of liked Nancy and, had she not been so encumbered, would have been paying attention to her myself. Anyway the boyfriend/boss started trying to drag her off by the arm and she hollered loudly. I was standing with my friend, Bruce McPhee, drinking champagne and discussing weighty matters, when the ruckus started. Bruce was a red-haired Irishman, a brawler from way back, not loath to participate in fisticuffs or anything else you might have going.
“Bruce,” I told him, “I’ve gotta put a stop to this and hopefully without ruining my expensive rented tuxedo. Keep an eye on things and if it looks like he’s getting any help, lend a hand.” Bruce eagerly agreed, hoping his talents would be required. Alas, they were not, the ruffian not interested in roughhousing with anyone tougher than Nancy. He exited, stage right, and the party rolled on, with me eventually putting up the now-unhoused Nancy on a cot in my living room, which Danny thought “cool.”
Bruce McPhee continued to be a presence around the Subterranean Circus. Always a big drinker and not shy about drug use, Bruce and his temper bounced around between jobs and girlfriends and, eventually, state prison. He was a little tamer when he got out and a little more careful. Years of reckless ingestions of poisons had left Bruce ill, however, and he was forced into dialysis in his mid-thirties. On his way home from his thrice-weekly visits to the hospital, wan and shaky, Bruce would stop by the store for a modest rest. He spoke ruefully of his mistakes and of sabotaging his young life, and he talked about the taxing nature of the dialysis, something with which I had no prior experience. Then, one day, Bruce just stopped coming. Nobody knew where he lived or how to reach him so Bruce McPhee quietly evaporated from our lives, occasionally wondered about or speculated upon until an old friend dropped by months later with the news he was gone, taken off and buried by family in some unknown recess of the universe, never again to stand in reserve at Halloween parties or drop by on his way home from the hospital. Not halfway through your own life, it is always shocking to see relatively young friends fall and though Bruce spent most of his time on the periphery of my existence, I felt unusually sad. It is always distressing to see health and power and youth brought down in so unseemly a fashion. “What fools these mortals be,” said Puck, and rightly so. But it doesn’t stop a tear from falling.
Home Dialysis For Fun And Profit
Speaking of dialysis, and who isn’t these days, our 87-year-old neighbor, Allen Morgan, was advised the other day that he might need some of it himself, always assuming he felt like hanging around the Earth for awhile. After mulling it over for a few days, Allen decided there was still a lot of UF softball and volleyball to be played so he was up for the treatment. Fortunately for Allen, it seems a person is no longer required to shuttle back and forth to the hospital or dialysis center three or four times a week. Nope, friends, now you can go through the drive-up lane—you can have your dialysis at home with the aid of our handy-dandy little hookup which allows you to watch TV or even sleep while those little gerbils rotate the dialysis machine. We are not making this up. So, if you’re in the market for these services and you do not have a lot of time to spare for inconvenient visits to the hospital, check us out on Wikipedia. You’ll be glad you did.
That’s all, folks….
