I recently inherited 63 million dollars from an eccentric old uncle. And, as I’m sure you all appreciate, I had to perform a series of tasks in order to be eligible for the purse. If I failed, the entire sum allotted me would be set ablaze in the dead of winter in London’s famed Isle of the Dogs district, once inhabited by street urchins, opium addicts, and very unlucky investors, now the home of mall rats, nettled husbands, and very unlucky investors. If Uncle Silas believed he was one thing, it was generous. If he was one thing, it was misguided.
Uncle Silas despised the cold. He believed that no man should have to experience that sensation, and dedicated his life to its irradication. He took pride in handing out winder coats to the less fortunate, lobbying for subsidized heating oil prices, and funding a discarded Soviet plan to pull the Earth’s orbit closer to the sun. Nothing ever preceded Uncle Silas’ desire to rid the world of frost, yet one activity came close. You see, Uncle Silas was an avid alpine snow skier. He fell in love with it on an excursion to Pennsylvania’s Pocono mountains during his young adulthood. Yes, this sounds terribly contrived, but such was the life of Silas Beckwith. I could not invent a peculiarity so absurd. And, in fact, the bulk of Silas’ fortune came from the ski lift industry. After limited success with the now obsolete “S”-bar, Silas had the notion to hang small heated boxes from wires strung between two points. We know them today as gondolas (little known fact: Silas got the name not from the Venetian boats, but as an anagram of an imaginary childhood playground of his invention called Goo Land).
So, as I’m sure you can relate to, I had to perform three oddball tasks of increasing difficulty in order to receive my inheritance. 21 million dollars would be wired into my Cayman bank account after the completion of each task. This was just like old Uncle Silas, a skinflint to the end! He couldn’t take his money with him, it’s true, but he could make leaving it behind as difficult as possible. Nonetheless, I was not about to let this fortune slip through my fingers because of the eccentricities of a dead, ski lift magnate. I would get this money if for no other reason than spite. And I would, too.
My first task was to spend a night in a haunted gondola car during a lightning storm on a Thursday in August. You can imagine my nervousness on Wednesday nights of that month, hoping that the next day would bring with it inclement weather so that I might have the opportunity to earn the first third of my due. Four Thursdays went by, clear as a Tiffany’s champagne flute. I would have to wait another year for my chance. Oh, Uncle Silas, you eccentric cad!
I was permitted, thankfully, to proceed to the second task while waiting for August to return. I was set adrift in the South Sea in an outrigger canoe with supplies enough to last a week. At the end of that time, I had to produce for the executors a meteorite. That is, a small piece of space rock had to withstand burning up in the Earth’s atmosphere, then land in a 20 square foot moving target on a vast body of water. My first attempt was a failure, as were my second, third, fourth, fifth, six, seventh, eight, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth attempts. During my nineteenth attempt, a mineral did descend upon me from above, but upon analysis it was discovered that it was merely an earth-borne pebble, dropped, perhaps, by some passing albatross. My twentieth, twenty-first, twenty-second, twenty- third, twenty-fourth, twenty-fifth, twenty-sixth, twenty-seventh, twenty- eighth, twenty-ninth, thirtieth, thirty-first, and thirty-second attempts were uneventful, tedious, and maddening. On the fifth day of my thirty- third week on the sea, by the grace of some higher power, I was struck in the temple by a genuine 21-million-dollar meteorite. I’d beaten you this time, you queer old scamp!
By the time I returned and recovered from the second task, August had passed (with, I might add, one stormy Thursday). Once again, I was forced to wait, and set my sights toward the third task.
The third and final task was to win the lottery. The goddamn lottery. Uncle Silas, you dick.
Long story shorter, I continue to play 30 numbers every week in the vain hopes that I can increase my fortune by 21 million dollars, (plus the jackpot). Happily, it rained most of last August, and I was finally able to increase my worth up to 42 million dollars. The final third eludes me, but I suppose that’s ok. I guess I am rather lucky to have made it this far.