Hmmm

So there's this couple in PIERRE, S.D. They beat the 1-in-146 million odds by buying the one winning ticket in the South Dakota Powerball Lottery. They came forward to claim it on Tuesday (the winning numbers were picked on May 18) That one ticket was worth $117 million.

Or $117,000,000.00 if you like to read all the zeros.

That is a hell of a lot of money.

I read further that if they choose to take 29 monthly payments, they actually get $116.8 million, or about $493,000.00 each month for 29 months.

But who wants to wait? I sure wouldn't. A lot could happen in 29 months. The country could go bankrupt. After all, Bush is still the president, he's still got lots of time to run the country further into the ground.

You could get hit by a bus, especially if you don't look both ways.

Or aliens could land and kill all the postal delivery people (an ironic switcheroo) and then who would deliver that monthly check?

They agreed. They took it in a lump sum.

But that doesn't mean they get all $117 million. If they take the lump sum they get less than half, they get $51.6 million. Maybe there is some fine print on the back of each ticket that says for being greedy you only get a portion of what you win?

And after the Internal Revenue Service gets their piece, this couple who "won" $117,000,000.00 will walk away with $38,688,566.00

But isn't that sort of false advertising? Don't get me wrong, $38,688,566.00 is still a HUGE chunk of money and I would (maybe) sleep with George Bush (either one) if given that much money (well, probably not)

But isn't that like buying 10 gallons of gas but only getting 4 gallons in your tank?

I say give them the entire $117 million.

And then ask them if they'd like to adopt me.