Imagination, lost?

Imagination.

When I was a little kid, I would sometimes nod off to my own stories, under the doona.

Some vivid memories would be being the owner of a fancy rock collection, (Fancy that) where the black light would be making all sorts of rocks glow in their cabinets, and people would flock to such a great display.

From Wikipedia- http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Fluorescent_minerals_hg.jpg

Or for some odd reason suddenly growing taller, and giving my school age tormentors their own stick back, or coming first for once or starring in the footy game.

Even some dreams remain- like actually going out with Wendy Johnston in third grade. She was the cutest girl I knew back then.

Those sorts of stories simmered down as I got to adult hood, until.

In the nineties, I was making more money and felt very satisfied with things. The little family was growing, buying a house was on the horizon. I don't recall any major tiffs with my wife.

Yet, on the rig in the middle of no-where in  particular, I started to wonder what I would do if I won the lotto. Well, that really got the old imagination going for the first time in a long time.

New fancy stuff for Tarn and the kids, cars, houses, sailboards. Donations to some charities- as not all are exactly charitable- more business like rather.

And how would I invest it after the thrill settled down?

Shares! Funds. How much interest does a major win generate, and would I really have to spend half my life away from the family anymore?

Ah, dreams. That last expectation has blown out double at the moment.

Just thinking of what to do with a lotto win back then was was my lullaby for a while out there.

After I lost Tarn, that lullaby was not in use.

Before that event, I had run a budgeting program on our household expenses for a year after we bought our little pot of  gold at the end of the smudgey rainbow, and I could tell "She What Must Be Obeyed" what we needed to live on, say thirty thou a year for house, food, car, utilities, newspapers (I got that anal), and that If I Could Keep The Oil Job, the house would be ours in less than ten years with all the extra shift work I was getting! After ten years we could live anywhere we liked! Or even get a holiday house at Sandy Point! However, I was not required in the Oil Patch a few years after that...

Later on I was working on a property, driving a tractor around for a day a few times a month, and the day dreams of first division lotto wins occupied my otherwise bored mind. A Lambo? New roof- and extensions?

The lullaby / story effect was lost again, I could fall asleep as soon as the head was plunked on the pillow.

From Wikipedia, again, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/35/VeyronUS001.JPG/800px-VeyronUS001.JPG

Then Top Gear came on and the Bugatti Veyron reared it's head and there I went again with the lotto dream, some for a car and some for interest to live off. Of course, to help get back to sleep I would spend an inordinate amount of time calculating interest, insurance, a new garage...

And now, just like reading a new text book that you know the answers to anyway, as soon as I think of winning a major prize in lozzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....