I say I will continue working and will keep my same apartment, until things are all sorted-out, trusts established, accountants and lawyers in place.
I say I will give ten percent to charity and establish a trust to provide income for extended family.
I think of starting a business for myself and one for my wife.
I think about college funds and travel.
I dream of a Manhattan townhouse and an apartment in London.
Season tickets at Ashburton Grove, the Met, the Symphony, and the Ballet.
I think of the iconography and pop art I could acquire.
Then I rise from bed, shit, shave, shower, and shine. I have breakfast with my family and go to work.
Then somebody else wins the big jackpot and I never think of it again.
This time, Anne sent me a link to the following article and it made me happy that this couple won!
N.J. Couple Wins Mega Millions Jackpot
By Assocated Press, found at wnbc.com
POSTED: 7:51 am EDT September 23, 2005
UPDATED: 6:10 pm EDT September 23, 2005
SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. -- Last week, he was a guy who drove a Toyota Camry to work trying to convince people they needed to buy pots and pans, a guy whose shtick was mildly amusing -- at best -- to friends, a guy whose own wife said he talked too much.
But on Friday, Harold Lerner got to do his shtick in front of hundreds of people and more than a dozen television cameras, knowing he probably had more money than all of them combined. He and his wife Helen were introduced at a press conference as the sole winners of a $258 million Mega Millions jackpot, the largest single-ticket win in New Jersey history.
And suddenly, everyone was hanging on every joke and wisecrack the 60-year-old Rutherford man made, from how he hid the winning ticket in his wife's lingerie drawer ("It was either that or my underwear drawer; it was an easy choice") to pretending he was an Internal Revenue Service agent who would audit every reporter who asked him a question.
He said the only things he and his wife had ever won before were a pair of Yankees tickets and a frozen turkey.
When asked how old he was, he replied that he was 27 and his wife 21. He joked about being suspicious of the lottery commission security official who took his ticket, and nearly giggled when he talked about how he and his wife walked around town for 48 hours, telling no one the big news until the lottery commission offices opened Monday morning.
"Saturday morning we received a phone call from our friend telling us somebody in Rutherford bought the winning ticket," he said. "I'm thinking, 'It can't be me.' Little did I know it was my wife who purchased the ticket. We ran downstairs, on the top of the newspaper were the five numbers, and I read off the numbers.
"She says, 'Honey, I think we're millionaires,' " he said. "We hugged, kissed and embraced. I'm thinking, `This can't be right, maybe we made a mistake.' We checked it 500 times."
But the winning numbers from the Sept. 16 drawing -- 5, 16, 41, 46, 50 and the Gold Mega Ball number 1 -- were all there. They got paranoid, Helen said, and stashed the ticket in her underwear drawer. Then they went for a walk around town, where residents were still buzzing about the as-yet unknown lottery winner.
"We're trying to be very cool about this," Harold said. They went to a friend's party that weekend, still telling no one their secret.
On Monday, a longtime family friend who is an attorney accompanied them to lottery headquarters to start the claims process. Since Helen, who bought the ticket, chose the cash option, they will get a total of $156.1 million, before federal taxes take about one-fourth of that, lottery officials said.
Helen, who used to live in Ocean City and formerly worked for a drug wholesaler, said she only plays the lottery when the jackpot exceeds $100 million.
They said some of their winnings would go toward Hurricane Katrina victims, as well as to Seton Hall University, where Helen graduated in 1976.
"I know that God is good," said Monsignor Robert Sheeran, Seton Hall's president. "But sometimes God is very, very good. Today is one of those days."
Harold Lerner said he would buy a yellow Checker taxi, a reminder of his childhood in Brooklyn, and give anyone who wanted one a free ride.
"We're really in dreamland at this point," he said. "I still don't believe it."
He said the couple would wait awhile before determining how to spend their unfathomable riches, and his wife said she had one purchase in mind, but would not say what it was. They say they plan to stay in Rutherford, where they've lived for the past 12 years, and try to live as normal a life as possible.
Both, however, are retired, effective immediately. And that's no joke.
© 2005 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Reprinted without permission.
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