Millions of Mega Dreams Go Bust

For a little bit there, we were all a little richer.

Well, at least our imaginations were.

And it was fun ... while it lasted.

We all knew the odds of winning Friday's Mega Millions jackpot was longer than such bizarre things as being attacked by a flesh-eating virus or being hit by an asteroid. But, man, was it fun to dream.

That's the whole marketing campaign behind the lottery. A buck can make your dreams come true. And in this economy, who wouldn't want to have that freedom?

And that's all I played: A buck. If I were working in an office, I might've played more in a pool. But since I'm not, I didn't.

But why play more than you needed to win? The dreams would have been the same if it was $1 into the pool as it would have been if it were $5 or $10. No extreme measures -- like four-hour lines at a shop on the California side of Primm -- necessary.

Like many of you, I had things mapped out on how it was going to be spent. Home, cars, charity, season tickets, college funds for the kids in the family. Maybe a second home somewhere exotic. But never anything extravagant to the level opulance -- at least in the dream. In fact, my thinking was always that the bigger piece of the pies would go into college educations.

But it was easy to do that because we all knew that the win was just a dream. If it came true, it's likely the first purchase would have been a trip to the hospital to have the heart palpitations calmed.

(And could you imagine the frenzy that would have overtaken the country had no one won? That jackpot would have hit $1 billion, I'd guess.)

So we all go back to our normal lives. All happy that we don't have to deal with the real-life nightmares that would have followed had we won with our dream lottery ticket. The taxes. The long-lost relatives coming out of the wood-work. The reality of having to have to hire an accountant to balance your checkbook.

Sigh.

Still, it woulda been nice to at least have gotten my buck back.