When I think about having millions of dollars, I generally don't think about buying anything for me. (Except travel, but I'll come back to that.) I think of buying my brothers cars or buying a house and renting it dirt cheap to friends or buying a building and turning it into a homeless shelter.

This week I've been staying at my brother's house and I thought: if I had millions, I would hide bundles of cash all over his house. (It would be tricky because if his dogs found it first, they'd eat it.) I was watching a CNBC special about tax cheats recently and they showed bundles of cash found in a pimp's house and I thought: "Wouldn't it be awesome to leave folded up wads of cash secreted around someone's house?!" I've thought before - with my friend M - that I'd love to leave individual hundreds around her house - between DVDs, in jacket pockets, stuck under furniture... Here I was thinking of a wad of folded bills that I would leave in a messy drawer or behind the ice trays or stuck in the bookshelf somewhere. I love the idea of someone finding treasure that they didn't expect.

I talked in my last post about leaving cash in the glove box of a gift car for my brother; today I was thinking about how cool it would be to messenger him a utility envelope full of bundles of cash - totaling 50 or 100 thousand, maybe. Take those bank stacks of $10k and fold them over and put rubber bands around them. Make someone feel wonder at seeing that amount of money.

I was thinking about handing my roommate a stack of stacks, 50 to 100 thousand. I can imagine he would be stunned and protest fiercely but I would assure him I don't need it and he can use it to take a trip or shore up his retirement (I don't know what he has going for him at the moment). I imagine telling him that I'll be cleaning all my crap out of the living room as I've rented (a couple!!) offices and will be moving into them and later maybe buying a house in a nicer part of town and offering him a posh space within it.
Why? Because he's a decent person and I think he deserves it. And because, like most people, I think to reward those immediately around me.

For myself what I'd want most is travel. I'm sure I would think of other luxuries as well (I've mentioned renting office space; I'm sure I'd want a house as well) but mostly I would like the ability to move about the planet freely. I'd like to see South America and Australia and South Africa and parts of Asia. I'd like to go to offbeat places - places in Africa and Asia that most people don't go. (I'd like to go to North Korea, for instance. You can get a visa and go on a tour.) Mostly I would like that ability, to go where ever I choose at close to a moment's notice.

Brothers

My Oldest Brother
I dream of buying a BMW M5 and parking it outside his house late at night. I would leave the title and $20,000 in cash in the glove box. The next day I messenger him the keys and a note that the title and repair fees are in the glove box.

I'm supposed to dogsit for he and his wife in a couple of weeks. They are leaving their car for me to use and I was thinking about how I'd like to leave that car for my brother when it occurred to me that their current car is damaged and how cool would it be to replace that car? Oh, hey! I could give their current car to my friend M! Her car is running down and she could use a new car and theirs is 1) a station wagon - which she could use space-wise in her job and also 2) a diesel, which she could convert to bio-diesel and possibly get free fuel! How cool would that be!

Then I would take her car and see if I could get an electric engine installed in it (by some private group or something). That would be cool. (My friend might actually want it back if that were the case.)

My Next-Oldest Brother
Yesterday I was thinking about taking some money out of the bank but there were no branches where I was. One bank I saw was Wachovia, which is this brother's bank. "Wouldn't it be great," I thought, "if I could just walk into his bank and deposit $40,000 in his account?"

I changed it to $4,000 because I thought about taxes and then I thought: "What the fuck, just put $40,000 in there and let him deal with the taxes." Even better, I would deposit $40,000 once a week for three weeks and not say anything to him and let him deal with the mind explosion.

My Younger Brother
I think I might send him $500 - $1,000 a month but no more. I would send it to his wife and let her spend it on bills or their children.

My Sister
She lives in a very expensive part of the country. I think I would buy her a house. Maybe.