This morning I woke up to quite a sight. I had emails. Hundreds of them. All the emails were from Google. To be more specific, they were Google Alerts.
For those of you who are unfamiliar, Google Alerts are emails sent to you based on subjects you tell Google you are interested in. For some people that might be a favorite animal or sports team, for others it might an important news story or hobby. For me, it's my name. I have Google notify me whenever something's written about Daniel Bruckner on the internet, on the off chance some of those writings might be about me.
Most weeks, this self-absorbed behavior is hardly intrusive. Every once in a while a German guy with my name scores a goal in soccer. There's also an inside trader with my name in San Diego. He occasionally holds seminars I find out about. And there's also a landlord in Milwaukee with my name who was busted for renting rodent-infested apartments to Burmese refugees. That particular me also has seven felony convictions for child pornography.
Other than that, the internet rarely mentions my name. That is, until today.
Apparently today, someone named Daniel Bruckner won $208 million in the lottery. And that Daniel Bruckner also lives in California. As you can imagine, I couldn't be more happy.
Any time someone with the same name as you wins $208 million in the lottery, you go through a period of self-examination. You question every choice you've made in life. And you ponder the choices he (the other Daniel Bruckner) must have made. Here's a guy (not you) holding a giant cardboard check. What am I holding?
There's so much to consider. I mean, how many people with the same name ever amount to anything? Ask the 3,000 other Bill Gates in the world. Expect to hear me shout those last two sentences should you go out drinking with me over the next ten to fifteen years.
"It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy,' a co-worker of his was quoted as saying. So he's successful and beloved. I would settle for either. The best thing any of my co-workers could muster up today was, 'at least you're not in one of your moods.'
I suppose I only have myself to blame. Years of chastising my peers about the squanderous habit of buying lottery tickets. I can only imagine trying to make the same criticism now. For a day, every Mexican I know felt smarter than me. That can't last, can it?
And I can only imagine what my parents must have thought when they heard/read the news. 'Finally, our ship has arrived!' 'Finally, he can pay us back for the hell he's put us through!'
When I sat down to write tonight, I didn't sit down to write this. But with every word I summoned from the deepest, darkest cavern of my mind came the image of a man, a man holding a giant cardboard check. And so I find myself here: limbo.
Will I forever measure myself against my doppelganger from San Jose? I suppose it would be healthier to compare myself to the slumlord pedophile from Milwaukee. That's a comparison I would win, isn't it? Who knows on this topsy turvy Friday the 13th?
Maybe in a few years Dateline NBC or one of the other news shows will do a story on how winning the lottery wrecked Daniel Bruckner's life. Until then, I shall drink heavily and burn my stacks of losing scratch-off tickets to keep warm.
The moral of today's story: Don't buy so many lottery tickets that you can't afford to pay your heating bill.
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5 comments:
i'm going to miss you most of all.
I am one of those people who buys lottery tickets every Tues/Wed/Fri/Sat ~ when I saw that Daniel Bruckner WON ~ I really thought it might have been you ... and really wished I kept in touch. But then I saw the article and saw the picture, it wasn't you. Then just read your post ... and still wish I kept in touch.
Mendacious, my Korea bound chum, may romance find you in your travels.
And look at this, if it isn't my old friend Roz stopping by. What a pleasant surprise. I'm afraid I'm not as attentive to my blog as I used to be. There's nothing but tumbleweeds and cobwebs around here. A wind chime makes a melody out of the passing wind. This place is a ghost town. All the minerals have been unearthed, there is nothing of value left. Sure, the occasional prospector passes through, but all they find is a deserted playground, the eroded property of a dreamer, the walls of which barely held together by the memories of what might've been.
If only I had won those millions. Maybe I could've restored so much of what has become derelict. Your comment was sweet, an inspiration that maybe there is life left in this place :)
It's nice to see you blog even if it's once in a while.
Your lucky you didn't win the lottery, would have ruined your outlook. On the other hand, my dad used to say; "Money isn't everything... it's just way ahead of what's in second place."
I don't play either, I like a warm house.
Wow, Jim! Hello again! I suppose you're right. Winning the lottery seems to cause more problems than it's worth. But then again, it's pretty much my only chance at owning my own island. And I kinda want one of those.
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