Hey hey hey,
So this is probably one of the last two sneak peeks into the book before it's September release. This is right after I receive a small inheritance from my father after he's passed. I hope you enjoy!!
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Billy Rae’s Famous American Meth Lab
Every so often during my daily fantasy about winning the lottery, I wonder if the people who’ve actually won big money are significantly happier after hitting their lucky payday. Each of the major television networks has done their own version of “The Lotto: A Special Interest Story” about some interchangeable idiot named Billy Rae Jinkins who won hundreds of millions of dollars playing the Powerball only to go bankrupt in ten months after blowing all of his winnings on lavish trips to Burger King, his needy neighbors, his brother’s girlfriend’s uncle’s autistic cousin, ten Porsches, a gold plated Hello Kitty toilet, and an Olympic sized swimming pool in the shape of Telly Savalas’ head.
Billy Rae, now destitute, ends up selling his only granddaughter into slavery so he can keep up with his diabetes medication. Subsequently, he opens a Meth Lab with the very last of his cash only to get busted by the Feds and then thrown in jail. In his exclusive prison interview with Diane Sawyer, Billy Rae stifles back tears and with great conviction says, “I’ve never been more miserable. Dagnabbit, I wish I’d never bought that winning lotto ticket!”
In the days and weeks following the settlement of my father’s estate, I was feeling a little like Billy Rae after winning my own $60,000 Powerball (minus the Hello Kitty toilet, of course). After dividing up my father’s things, including his money, I thought his death and the direction of my life might actually start to make a little sense. But having this money was like a dark cloud of uncertainty hanging over my head. Was I supposed to spend this money or get rid of it? This financial endowment was the only remotely positive memory I had of him that didn’t involve his lack of social graces or one his many famous pratfalls due his partial blindness.
This money was the nicest gift my father had ever given me outside of not aborting me, feeding me, and occasionally throwing a football around with my younger self. He could have left everything to the church or some right-wing militant Christian organization, but instead he chose to give me something that didn’t come with a card signed by my mother, who had carelessly forged his signature.
This conundrum of what to do with my money had me leafing through my Bible for the first time in over a decade. I was reminded of the Biblical Parable of the Talents as told by Jesus (the Jewish carpenter of yore, not the Dominican baseball player).
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Thanks for reading!! And as always feedback is welcome :)
-Señor Josh
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