People always ask me what I would do if I had a million dollars. I don�t know why people always ask me this. Probably because I owe them around that much, I�d guess.
This is not a simple question to answer for most people. Many fall back on a default, like paying off student loans, buying a new home, or going to see The Passion of the Christ 100,000 times. A friend said he�d spend it all on laserdiscs, Salon.com stock and the presidential candidacy of Dennis Kucinich, which is a totally cool idea and one that couldn�t possibly go wrong. But those aren�t altruistic enough for me. If one were handed that much money, shouldn�t it be spent on the greater good? Shouldn�t one think about what the world needs? I know I would.
What would you do with a million dollars? To me, it�s simple.
With that one million dollars, I would join one-hundred million of those record clubs where you can get 12 pop hits for a penny. The CDs will arrive at my workplace, where the goofy Puerto Rican boy�the one who brings the packages by everybody�s desk, and who always tells me I have nice hair�he will ask me to sign for them, which I will do with a flirtatious smile and maybe a little butt wiggle.
I will then sell those 1.2 billion CDs at a local pawn shop at a discounted rate, say, five bucks a pop. I will bring an extra couple of bucks with me in case I want to buy some old Nintendo games, like Excitebike or Metroid. They also sell cassettes for 50 cents there, so I plan on buying something by 50 Cent. Whose birthday is it, shorty? It�s MY birthday!
I will net $6 billion from that sale, but I will not become a complacent fat cat. With the new capital, I will reinvest into the marketplace. I will take my cash, and I will use it to join six hundred billion of those record clubs where you can get 12 pop hits for a penny. When they arrive, my exhausted yet charmed Puerto Rican mail boy will come by my cubicle, which is now encrusted with diamond pushpins and an emerald-covered bottle of white out. I will smile, and he will smile, and I will sign again for the packages. I might even wink.
I will then take those CDs to the pawn shop and sell them at an even further discounted rate of four dollars a disc, to show my magnanimous nature.
I will then use $1 trillion of that $4.8 trillion to join 100 trillion of those record clubs where you can get 12 pop hits for a penny. I will keep those CDs. The other $3.8 trillion, however, I will use to buy the continent of Africa, where I will cure the AIDS crisis, plow down the rain forests to build a massive Pier 1 Imports, and, having put in a full day, subsequently listen to my CDs in peace. With my Puerto Rican mail boy. His name is Herbert, but if I cut him a check, I�m hoping he�ll let me call him Juan.
Will Leitch
sings mezzo-soprano at The Black Table and recorded the L.P., Life as a Loser.
Write to Y.P.R.
Write for Y.P.R.
Right on, Y.P.R.
