STRANGER THAN FICTION: I BETTER WIN: LOTTERY WINNINGS ALREADY SPENT BEFORE THEY'RE EARNED

Our new favorite activity is planning how we'll spend our $7 million-plus in lottery winnings. He wants to start businesses, I want to hire a personal masseuse.

Have you heard the one about the guy who prayed every week that he'd win the lottery? He offered the same prayer for months, until finally the guy felt it was time to get a little more firm.

"Lord, I've been praying for months to win the lottery, and it hasn't happened!" he said. "I'm a faithful man ... what gives?"

A voice boomed from the heavens: "Buy a ticket."

Well, The Other Half and I have been following that divine guidance pretty faithfully since moving to Florida, to the tune of about $52 per year. Sounds like a lot of money when you add it up like that, but it doesn't seem like anything when I whip out that extra buck along with the $10 for gasoline, sodas and candy bars.

We've got a little Sunday morning routine around our place. I run out to get the paper, Mr. Half extracts a lottery ticket or two from his wallet, and I say, "Well, looks like there's some bad news."

He says: "What's that?"

I say: "We didn't win the lottery again."

He says: "Phooey."

And so we go on, week after week.

But can one really put a price on the hours of entertainment the lottery has provided us? We've spent that $7 million plus in our minds over and over. And there's a distinct difference in our plans.

Mr. Half wants to:

(A) Buy two Waffle House franchises, constructing one in downtown Cape Girardeau and the other by Interstate 55. In Pensacola, you literally cannot swing a dead cat (or any kind of dead animal) without hitting a Waffle House.

(B) Buy a radio station on the Gulf Coast so he can finally listen to the kind of music he likes. As his wife of four years, I predict a format change about once every four months.

(C) Build a bagel-and-coffee shop in downtown Cape Girardeau, so our friends at the Southeast Missourian will have someplace to grab a healthy breakfast before spending another day in the salt mines.

(D) Begin his own professional wrestling franchise, which would compete for viewers with the World Wrestling Federation, World Championship Wrestling and, of course, Extreme Championship Wrestling.

Tipping the scales at ... well, never mind ... I'd be the next Chyna, only with much more cellulite. Much more.

My goals are more rest-intensive. I would:

(A) Give money to a few of my favorite charities, which would help others while assuaging my guilt for having so much money without working for it.

(B) Sit on my fat butt shouting "ROOM SERVICE!!!" until my vocal cords wore out.

(C) Finally get tired of sitting around, hire a personal trainer, a cook who makes low-fat meals and a personal masseuse.

This could be the reason why so many lottery winners report being unhappy and even depressed after hitting the jackpot. The wives probably want to do normal lottery winner things -- like ending lives of abject poverty and servitude -- while their husbands want to invest millions in labor-intensive businesses that have "failure" written all over them.

And what about your old, poverty stricken friends? Sure, you'd still want to hang out with them. But every time the bar tab got tallied, they'd be looking to you to whip out your fat wallet.

I mean, why can't they pay once in awhile? Just because I'm a millionaire doesn't mean they should take advantage of me, those lazy twerps! Do I look like the damn Bank of the Universe or something?

Excuse me. I just became carried away in my lottery fantasy again.

Anyway, maybe it's better that I don't win the lottery. I've got a solid marriage, great friends, two cats that love me, a rented roof over my head, a couple thousand dollars in credit card debt, two car payments ...

Uh, think I'll go buy that ticket.