Not a week goes by that I do not receive at least one email from Nigeria. The mystery is that I do not even know anybody from Nigeria. I would have trouble even locating Nigeria on a map. (I think it is a Scandinavian country up between Norway and Sweden, but, then, I never was very good at geography.)
All the emails have one thing in common...they promise to make me rich. The names of my would-be benefactors are similar...Nugambu, Poponaruma, Simbakundi (hardly Scandinavian names, but you get the idea.)
Their stories have a common theme. They are orphaned princes whose daddys are deposed kings who died and left a horde of money they need to sneak out of the country.
All I need to do to split the loot is to forward my bank account number and my social security number, and forty million dollars will suddenly appear in my name at the local bank.
I shudder to think what would happen if forty million dollars suddenly appeared in my account at the local bank in my small town. The word would get out, and, just like football on TV, somebody would demand an instant replay of the city election. The results would be overturned, and I would find myself on city council.
To make matters worse, the IRS and theGBI meth squad would swoop down on Royston, since it is common knowledge that all elected officials, especially wealthy ones, are crooks or dope dealers.
It would be a mess. Not worth it.
Sorry, Nugambu. I just hit the "delete" key.
Besides, I'm not sure I want to be rich. Just this week I read a story from the Associated Press about a Kentucky couple who hit a 65 million dollar lotto jackpot four or five years ago. The story got renewed attention when the woman's son found Mama dead in her palatial geodesic home. She had died several days earlier of undetermined causes.
You would think a boy whose Mama was worth that much money would keep in closer touch.
The story goes that when the couple hit the jackpot, the husband quit his job as a forklift driver, she quit her job assembling corrugated boxes, and they decided to go their separate ways.
The man dreamed of moving to Australia. He no doubt had seen that James Garner western about the guy who was just passing through town on his way to Australia.
Garner never made it. Neither did the estranged husband. He built a replica of Mount Vernon in Kentucky and died there a couple of years later. (At least he had a higher goal than the lotto winner I heard about who moved to Alabama and bought a double-wide.)
Now Mama is dead, and there is no one left to share the remaining lotto money except the son, and possibly other equally-compassionate relatives of this close-knit family.
With stories like this, I am convinced that "rich" isn't all it's cracked up to be. "Comfortable" is good enough.
What is "comfortable?" Well, at 75, for me it is getting by, not having to do too much, wandering around town irritating local merchants, sitting on the bench with my industrious compatriots, harassing city council, and writing drivel like this that otherwise busy folk may take a minute to read and enjoy.
Don't laugh. It beats driving a forklift or assembling corrugated boxes.