Monday, February 9, 2009

If I had a million dollars...or more!

You know the song "If I had a million dollars"? I've been thinking seriously about that lately (as seriously as I think about anything in life). What if I did have a million dollars? Probably, I wouldn't buy you a house, like the song says. Sorry. I don't know how many people read this, but if I bought each one of you a house, I'd lose my million dollars pretty quickly. Maybe I'd buy you a hat or something. This got me thinking though. What if I had a billion dollars? Then maybe I would buy you a house. But just one, for all of you. You'd have to work out amongst yourselves how you were going to share it. But what else would I do with the left over money? There's all sorts of things I could do with a billion dollars. I made a pretty good sized list of what I would do with a billion dollars, here's some examples.

1. Eat at a buffet everyday.
57. Get it all changed into coins, and store it in a money bin that was roughly the size of a large sky scraper.
91. Buy an island and make my own country (I'm not sure how that works, but if I had a billion dollars, I could pay someone to find out).

I could do all sorts of things with a billion dollars. I could buy servants, friends, and much, much, more! Yup, owning a billion dollars would be the best...or would it?


This should be roughly a million dollars. Not that I counted. When you have this much money, you pay someone else to count your money. But you need to watch them to make sure they don't steal any. Not that you watch them though. When you have this much money, you pay someone to watch the guy you paid to count your money. You may even want the second guy watched too. Just in case.

What if I ruled the world? Now that would be something. I'd be a benevolent ruler...at first. Then power would definitely corrupt me. You know the drill, I'd probably throw my sons in prison (this assumes in the future I have sons) because I'd be worried they would try and take my throne (solid gold by the way, very ornate, lots of precious stones, and plenty of platinum and silver worked into it in nice little spiral designs). Towards the end, I wouldn't want to die, so I'd start forcing all the scientists in the world to find a way to make me live forever. Then I would get angry when they told me it wasn't possible, and I would make a decree that as soon as I died, the world would end. I'd have some sort of switch hooked up so that when my life ended, nuclear warheads would go off in the center of the earth or something. That would encourage the scientists to work harder. Then, as I got older and there was still no hope of not dying, people would start coming out to save the world. You know, like Harrison Ford, Will Smith, and other world saving people that we see in the movies. I would win though, because I've seen the movies, and because I rule the world and have many billions of dollars by this point. By the end though, I would realize the errors of my ways, and not want to destroy the world. On my death bed, I would tell my advisor (who would not be the typical evil advisor trying to supplant me) the code to disarm the bombs. Unfortunately, my change of heart may not come quickly enough. As I finish telling him, and he runs to the control panel to type it in, I would probably pass away. Would the world be saved? Who knows. The only way we're going to find out is to make me the ruler of the world and see how it plays out. So next time we get together to decide who should rule to world, pick me, and we'll solve this mystery.

3 comments:

Katherine said...

Hmmm...the problem here, Mike, is that I'm already slated to take over the world. I suppose I could make you head of a group of my minions, and you could make an attempt to overthrow me, but I have to warn you: it won't work. I'm sure I'd enjoy the witty repartee that would inevitable ensue while we dueled to the death, though.

Amy said...

In your own personal fantasy, you have your advisor at your deathbed? I think maybe you need a break from grad school...

Dan Ritter said...

I think this conversation should have gone on more in the evenings back in the day: "What are we going to do tonight, Murt?" "Try to take over the world".