Laughing Matters: Lucky

By Ryan G. Van Cleave |  Illustrations by Darcy Kelly-Laviolette
April 2021

I’m not supposed to say anything about this, but you’ll keep it hush-hush, right? Because we’re Sarasota Scene buddies and all?

Fantastic. With that pinkie-swearing promise of silence, I’ll dish.

It’s official. As of this month, I’m a millionaire. It’s #8 of the “Twelf Live Golz” that six-year-old Ryan wrote on the wall of his closet with a purple crayon, and, to be honest, I’m a little surprised I got here so soon! From my litany of college majors (undeclared, music, music performance, philosophy, English, etc.), I wasn’t exactly chasing the Almighty Dollar in the most strategic or efficient way possible. 

So, imagine my surprise when the money magic finally happened!

I mean, I just opened up Gmail and BOOM! there it was—a note from Mr. L.X. Hemsfelder, Esq., saying “Congrarulations. Youre email account has won you £5,800,000 from the National Lottery UK.” I have no idea how much money that is in American buckeroonies, but with that many zeros, one has to assume it’s like lots of millions, right? And to think—I don’t recall ever purchasing a lottery ticket from the National Lottery UK. I haven’t even been to Europe since 1994!

Here’s the really surprising part, though. I won the National Lottery UK not once, not twice, but THREE MORE TIMES this week. I have all four emails proving it. Now, they’re not all from Mr. Hemsfelder, but one assumes that with that much money being dealt with, he has colleagues and minions to help get all that prize cash to where it rightly belongs. All I need to do is “reply to this email for more detale and clame” and supply them with “mild” banking information.

So, I’ve been thinking about what I’m going to do with all that cashola. I suspect the first things that came to my mind are the same ones that come to yours, too. 

1. Hire 80s super-band The Scorpions to follow me everywhere I go and kick into my theme song, “Rock You Like a Hurricane,” upon demand.

2. Order a custom suit of 24k gold chainmail armor for Harvey, my guinea pig. (He’s a very enthusiastic D&D player.)

3.Host a 24-vehicle ATV demolition derby in my backyard. (Self-explanatory.)
4. Purchase a jet-powered hovercraft. (In case I ever want to take up golf again. Or in case I want to give those early-morning-chattering squirrels in my backyard a little payback.)
5. Get a pink Chanel No. 5 fire extinguisher for my pantry. (Just because.)

6. Purchase lunch with Warren Buffet via an eBay auction. (He does this 1x/year, and in 2020, it went for $2.6 million.)

7. Buy my parents a sizable gift card for the Glace Luxury Ice Company, a California-based company that produces hand-carved, zero-taste ice designed for minimum dilution and maximum cooling. 

(A 40-piece sleeve is only $325!)

8. Reserve a seat on the first SpaceX mission to Mars. (Though I don’t ACTUALLY want to go to Mars, so I’ll have to factor in the cost of sending a proxy. I hope he remembers to snap lots of pix!)

9. Pay Elon Musk to wire the moon with a horizon-to-horizon lighting system that says GO BEARS! (Hopefully, it’s controllable via Bluetooth from the comfort of my TV chair so I can help make Football Sundays really special.)

10. Shop at Whole Foods more than 1x/year.

11. Hire a mad scientist to make Jurassic Park real. 

12. Fix the tear in my lanai. (Squirrel created, of course.)

What do you think? Have I covered all the obvious things? (Should I add back in the His and Hers Abandoned Nuclear Missile Silos in case we want the ability to work on our tans without needing sunlight?)

In any case, that’s my list and I’m sticking by it. So, the next time someone tells you that the American Dream is dead, keep my rags-to-riches story—as well as Mr. L.X. Hemsfelder and the National Lottery UK!— in mind. 

And if you don’t see my humor column next month, it’s because I listened to my finance guy who suggested I spend a year or two dead purely for tax reasons.

If you are coming into a small, mega, or Bill-Gates-style fortune in the near future, please let me know ASAP—I’m at GoneFishin4Eva@scenesarasota.com. Maybe we can shop for Cessnas together or go halvsies on an aircraft carrier. I hear the USS Enterprise (CVN-65) is available for a song! I get to play Captain Kirk first, though. Just saying.