Winner winner

It's always amusing when people say they don't play the lottery "until it gets to be like 76 million bucks."

Like they would turn down 75 million bucks. Or 75 bucks, for that matter.

The lottery is a fun fantasy, certainly not a part of the financial planning of anyone sober or sane, and yet, when someone wins, we cheer for them instead of envying them. 

Take Nishit Parikh, a resident of Toronto, Canada. Nishit won 55 million Canadian dollars ($40,238,550 in US dollars) and he is happy because now he “can finally afford a house in Toronto.”

I mean, really. I know housing costs are high and the interest rate is a killer, but I see "SOLD" signs all over, so someone is buying houses in Baltimore, presumably without tens of millions in their wallets.

I'm sure he can get himself a nice little bungalow with his newfound riches.

Our summer home, "Mark-A-Lago."

By the way, Parikh said he usually uses a set of number for his lottery ticket, numbers comprising important dates for his family, but this time he went with auto-generated picks, and look how that worked out for him!

He says he wants to travel to see South Africa and then invest in real estate when he gets home.

If he swings through our town on the way back to Toronto, maybe we can interest him in buying some of the empty abandoned malls and big-box stores that dot Baltimore like chocolate chips on a cookie. It's the reverse of the old "Buy one, get one free" deals at Sears.

Buy one empty Sears store, get another one free!