This

This

An exercise in how to get the dough leads to an inexpensive but priceless ending.

I don’t want to be piggy, so let’s just say you give me $20,000 every three months rather than that ridiculously huge jackpot of millions. That would be terrific. It would be like a flutter, a nice pot, the kind of thing gamblers hope for at the close of a really intense Friday poker night. Well, I guess that would be kind of a high-stakes game. My knowledge of poker is limited to an occasional game with friends when I mostly volunteer to sit out, mostly so I can devour in a corner more of the really good brownies I bring along. OK, so maybe a flutter from a poker game is not what it would be like.

Maybe this. You have a great aunt that you kind of forgot about; she moved to Canada or Argentina before you were born, and no one had a clue about what had happened to her until three things occurred: you discover that she struck it rich, that she died, and that, without ever having met them, she left all of her grand nieces and nephews a lot of money—$20,000!

Or maybe this. That rather tiresome Antiques Roadshow is coming to the neighborhood, and, while in the attic digging around for Christmas decorations, you stumble across that outrageously elaborate, grotesque, pounded tin merry-go-round that your husband picked up decades earlier and insisted upon keeping. This “objet” (hardly an “objet d’art”) is covered with cobwebs and peanut butter from when you let the kids play with it years ago, but it basically shouts out, “Take me to your Antiques Roadshow!” And you coax one of your children to come along—OK, not your children; they would never be caught dead at the Antiques Roadshow—so a friend, and you go, and they swarm over you and your objectionable objet, and they ask coyly, “How much would you say this is worth?” And you answer with a smirk you pray looks like a sweetly hopeful smile, “Oh, I don’t know—maybe 100 dollars? Maybe 500?” And the guy says, beaming at the cameras, “Given its prime condition (you don’t mention the peanut butter), I would hazard $20,000 at auction!” You faint—or try to. And he asks if you plan to sell it or hold onto it for the grandkids, and you say, “Ooh, that’s a tough one. I dunno. Have to talk it over at home,” while madly calculating how soon you can get that thing out of your hands and 20,000 smackeroos into them.

So those are examples of how I might find myself with 20,000 unlooked-for dollars. You might—reasonably—ask why, if I wanted access to clods of money, I didn’t seek it through more conventional, assured avenues. A lucrative career, for example? I have never been able to do anything just for the sake of money. I inherited that from my father. (I might add, I inherited nothing else from him) I just don’t find money for its own sake all that interesting and the professions that bring in the dough did not appeal to me. I followed my own passions. I am a teacher and a writer. Need I say more? And I am 100 percemt positive that I made the right choices. OK, maybe 96, sometimes 85 percent.

Why, then, you ask, didn’t I attach myself to a person who could concentrate on making money? I had offers, believe me, but never from someone I liked enough. I ended up with an individual with all the qualities I wanted, but he has not been, is not now, and will never be what you might call a money-maker. And I would not trade him for anyone. Well, I am 98 percent sure I would not. OK, 94.7 on a bad day, 99 percent on a good one.

But this is what is nice about the arrangement I hope lies ahead for me (and thanks so much in advance). A windfall of $20,000 from you a few times a year would forestall the following: my having actually to learn how to play poker instead of just showing up and eating all the brownies; my having to find in far-flung corners of the world great aunts who had slipped my mind, struck it rich, and conveniently died with no close heirs; my having to rescind all the snide remarks I make with every ad for Antiques Roadshow; my having to change professions or, worse, husbands.

But now that I think of it, $20,000 quarterly is a little piggy. Let’s make it $10,000. I really do not need more than that to do some of the things I’d like to do with my periodic windfalls. What, exactly? Oh, I would fly to Paris on a whim for a week, stuff myself with croissants and runny Camembert, walk cobblestoned streets, and sing out “Bonjour!” without booking six months in advance using frequent-flyer miles. I’d treat family and friends to a long weekend in New York, put everyone up at a top-notch hotel, get tickets to a wonderful show, instead of having to spend one of our three days in (or on) line in hopes of a cheap ticket to something I don’t really want to see. I would learn about a fabulous, very pricey restaurant on Check, Please! and call up for reservations for a whole crowd of us, rather than suggesting wistfully to my husband that maybe someday we could dine there for a really special occasion. I would sashay through all my favorite clothing shops, pick up this dress, that skirt, those shoes, try them on, and (oh, heaven!) buy the lot of them. I’d . . . I don’t know, I’d do lots. Can’t think of anything else right now. Certainly nothing major. Don’t want to change the husband, the family, the job, the house. In fact, let’s make that $5,000 every few months. Yes, just a smallish periodic windfall, a little “lark” money. Certainly not your 20 or 10 or 5 million.

In fact, you know what? Keep the money.

This is the winning ticket: At the end of a full day of good work and some fun, you step out after dinner onto the deck you are lucky enough to have for one last whiff of the sweet early autumn night. You take in the dark sky shivering with stars. You invite a loved one to join you and you gaze together at the gibbous moon for a silent minute. Then you turn and go back inside to someplace known, and warm, and safe, and lovely. This is winning. This is rich. This. This.

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Maureen Ellen O’Leary is a writer and professor of English at Diablo Valley College. Her work has appeared in international, national, and local publications. She lives in Oakland and can be contacted at MOLeary@dvc.edu.

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