If I had a Million Dollars

The new show, "Windfall", is about a group of people who win millions of dollars. This has happened a number of times across North America. Recently, a group of A&W employees in BC won the lottery. They had a pool and couple of people didn't pitch in. When the pool won, they wanted back in. There was a huge hooplah and at the end of it, it seemed like the lawyers would be windfall winners. The show Windfall traces a similar plotline. That story got a lot of play, so it's likely that creatively bankrupt producers at Hollywood picked up on the story and ran with it. Of course they couldn't do a room full of burger flippers (ew-- poor people); they get a bunch suburbanites who are likely to fill out a poor man's Peyton Place.
I like this premise because it's the ultimate in wish fulfillment. I told my boss that I liked my workplace so much that if I won the lottery I would give them a month's notice. If I didn't like my job? With earlier employers I would have sent them a video tape of me running around their office in a state of undress, followed by a big sign that would read, "I QUIT"
I think I would prioritize who I would give money to. For me, I thought that was an odd realization. I wanted to win money to distribute it? What I would really want out of a lottery winning? A house, a car, some indulgences (think $30,000 at an Electronic store-- a good store-- not Future Shop); a perpetual trickle of income and this opportunity to tinker. Ironically, if I were allowed to tinker without deadlines, run a business idea without it costing rent money, I could come up with a million dollar idea. Because of my financial treadmill, I cannot stop to hatch a money making idea that would allow me to get off of the treadmill.
The bit out of Windfall that I liked was that of the pizza delivery girl who got lumped into the pool as a second thought. She was on the verge of eviction from her trailer. Then, a helicopter swoops down to collect her and her family; then whisk her off to a fabulouse future. It's a contemporary version of Deux Ex Machina. That's sort of what we want to see. Do we want to earn a million dollars in our lifetime? Nah, we'd rather have it all at once. We'd rather have a windfall.