To Making A Million Dollars

For Christmas, my nephew gets $100 bill and declares himself a “hundred-aire!”

 

He’s 7 and though he can literally pocket that money, he can’t really comprehend what to do with that much money.

Out at dinner with friends, one suggests to my son he write a raffle ticket app. “You’ll make a million dollars!”

He’s 15. He can imagine ways to spend a million dollars: a new car, dinners at steakhouses, any college he wants, a trip to China. It might take a while, but he could blow through it.

I try to calculate if, over my life, I’ve made a million dollars. I start with my current job but stop when I get to those years right after grad school. Making a million dollars is best when you make a million all at once.

You start a company and sell it for a million dollars. You write a book; it ends up on the New York Times bestseller list; Angelina Jolie buys the rights to it and wants to star in it. You buy a lottery ticket at 3 AM at the E-Z Stop Mart on South Broad St. and wake up in the morning as part of the 1%. Jackpot.

My mom plays this game best. Whenever she imagines winning the lottery, first she gives a sizeable but equal chunk to each of her kids. She wants to take us all on a trip, even the great grandchildren, perhaps especially them. She would hold the toddler on her lap at the end of the table where we are all eating dinner. We don’t notice but for several minutes they have been unusually quiet. We look over and Mom is holding an open sugar packet, while her great granddaughter dips her finger in and licks it. Yes, she’d pay a million dollars for that.