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.