allaboutwomen

We’ve heard the tales of woe.

Abraham Shakespeare wins $30 million in the ’06 Florida lottery and winds up dead under a 30-by-30-inch concrete slab.

Jeffrey Dampier wins $20 million in Illinois and his greedy sister-in-law shoots him in the head. Willie Hurt wins $3 million in Michigan and blows it on crack.

Billy Bob Harrel kills himself two years after winning $31 million in Texas in ’97 and William Post wins $16 million in Pennsylvania but 10 years later lives on food stamps.

And on and on and on.

So what?

A concrete slab or two is a risk worth taking when we’re contemplating $330 million and counting — up and up and up. Besides, I’m not a suicidal crackhead. Are you? Are your relatives all sleazy grifters with guns? Not mine, or not most of them, anyway. Just steer clear of drunken binges at Mohegan Sun and friends with “investment opportunities,” and you’re golden.

My theory? These tragic stories are just supposed to make us feel better for not winning, for never winning, for enduring those endless sleepless nights fretting over the rent, the mortgage, the college bills, the nightmares of a desperate old age collecting cans in a rickety shopping cart.

That could happen . . . to other people.

Not to you. Surely not to me. For us, there’s the dream of . . . $330 million. Even after taxes we’re talking, with just a little smarts, eternal material bliss.

You know what Tim for Treasurer says: You can’t win if you don’t play. So I’ll be in that very long line at Corner Variety this morning, $50 in hand, hoping against hope with the little old ladies on fixed incomes and the disheveled guy down on his luck since ’82.

I should note here that research by the Journal of Gambling Studies does in fact provide a far rosier picture of lottery winners than these spoilsport downers do. Here’s the key: Hire a good lawyer, a better money manager, don’t make too many drastic life changes too fast and if you like your job, don’t quit.

Be forewarned. When I win, I won’t quit writing this column. So my beloved Herald column commenters, if you can’t stand me now, wait till I’m filing from Antigua. From my lounge chair. On the 1,000-foot stretch of white, sandy, near-empty beach. That’s all mine.