There is a 99 cent store at 7th and Rose near
where I live. One day curiosity got the better of me and I strolled in to see
what type of wares they were peddling. I assumed it would be similar to your
standard dollar store that sold trinkets and extremely shitty paper towels and
the like. What I found was mind blowing: 2 liters of Pepsi, boxes of Orville
Redenbacher popcorn (my fave) multipacks of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and giant
bags of Lays Kettle chips, even Penn tennis ball sleeves. These same items would
run me 2 to 3 times as much at a regular grocery store. There has to be a
logical explanation for this. Perhaps this is the Pepsi that gets rejected or
fails a bunch of taste tests. Maybe those Lays chips were subjected to rats. I
picked up a few items and I couldn’t tell a discernible difference. Then I
thought about it harder and I realized, I really don’t give a shit about
quality.
I have done such a 180 since high school. I used to refuse
to go grocery shopping with my mom if she went to Walmart because I thought
that if someone spotted us they would think that my dad lost his job or
something. Now I wish there were a place where I could get the 2 buck chuck
bottles that didn’t pass Trader Joe’s standards and I could get it for a
dollar. (Have I mentioned that the sales of 2 buck Chuck are illegal in Venice
because it makes it too affordable for the bums to black out and become unruly)
So yes, I will frequently shop at the 99 cent store in my Burberry coat,
because it’s more important to me to pay 9 dollars for a beer on a Friday night
at a bar than to pay more than 99 cents for my soap.
Speaking of the power of a dollar, I have been giving some
thought today about what I would do if I could turn one into $500 million. Ah
yes, the Megamillions jackpot is at a half billion dollars right now. It’s all any lower middle class person can
talk about, but like it or not, I live right around the poverty line so fuck it
I’m going to talk about it too.
First of all, everyone is going about it wrong. Inevitably
whoever wins this jackpot is going to have one shot at fame. Some news reporter
will come to your house and ask you what you are going to do with your new
fortune. Now telling the reporter that you are “going to pay off your student
loans, buy your parents a house, give some money to the church and take a
vacation” may be the answer America wants…but its fucking weak. How boring is
that? You just became part of the 1% and you are going to pay back your student
loans? Boring.
No. What you do is tell that reporter I am flying all my
friends to Vegas and we are going on a hooker fueled bender. Now you just
became the biggest news story on the planet. “New 25 year old lottery winner
vows drinking, drugs, prostitution with winnings.” This sends America into an
uproar, what an asshole right? The economy is fucked, people are starving and
this jackass is taking his friends to Vegas. This inevitably gets you enough
buzz to go on a late night talk show, let’s say Fallon. He asks you a question
like “so you are going to spend all your money on hookers and Vegas?” Then you
reply, “Come on Jimmy, when you have half a billion dollars do you really think
you have to pay women to sleep with you? I was just fucking around.” You go on
to talk about how you are just a regular dude that stumbled into some money and
instead of trying to save the world you are going to go rage.
Now you’ve established yourself as an every man and America
forgives you, but you become famous among twentysomething males.
When it comes to purchases, sure I would have a house on
every continent, I would fly to a different country for dinner once a week and
I would never work a day the rest of my life, I would finance independent films
so I could hang out with movie stars and I would go to clubs in flip flops and
buy bottles like a fucking boss.
I would start a charity to pay the legal fees of frat guys
with public intox or duis, throw yacht parties off the coasts of really busy
beaches to make everyone jealous. I would buy all of the grape and cherry
Kamchatka left in the world…scratch that, I would buy Kamchatka and start mass
producing grape and cherry at college campuses again. I would build my alma
matter a 100 million dollar frat castle complete with a moat. I would probably
also document my every purchase…it would kind of be like an r rated blank
check. Long story short, I would unabashedly do whatever the fuck I wanted and tell anyone that stood in my way to blow me.
Sure it sounds like I would live a very shallow existence,
but at least it is an honest one. The reason people hate the Kardashians so
much isn’t because they are rich for no apparent reason it’s the bullshit
associated. When Kim runs her mouth about how she is a business woman and she
works so hard blah blah blah I just want to shoot her. If she came out and said
ya, you know I fucked Ray J, I’m pretty attractive and I get paid just to
exist, I can’t hate that. If I could go have interracial sex right now and get
3 tv shows out of it I would head straight to Compton.
It’s an exercise in futility though, I’ll probably never win
500 million dollars…I’ll probably never make more than $150,000 in a year the
rest of my life. But it is fun to sit back and see what kind of person you are,
apparently I’m a self absorbed dick who likes to get fucked up, but who didn’t
know that already. But until I strike it big, I’ll be shopping at the dollar
store, and maybe after too…I don’t give a fuck about quality, just about
excess. Do you ever wonder what kind of person you would be with unlimited
money? It’s kind of like having a super power. Would you use it for good or for
evil? I would use it for bro.
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