I Had a Dream

... last night that the $700 billion bailout of Big Business had been converted to a lottery, and that I had been awarded the entire shooting match, lock, stock, and barrel. After pinching myself repeatedly upon waking, I immediately scribbled a to-do list. I'd like to share that list with you.

What to do with $700 billion:

1. Buy the NBA.

Not just one team, all of them. And since I will own everything from the arenas (including the chewing gum I left underneath seat 4, row H, section 21 at Staples Center during a game in 2005) to the team mascots to each player's shoestrings, I will decide what happens and when. That said, all games will be canceled and rearranged to fit into a more disruptive schedule. Rather than beginning each season in October and wrapping things up the following June with the celebrated NBA Finals, I'm going to schedule all regular-season games to coincide with Major League Baseball playoff games and the World Series. The new NBA Finals will consist of a single sudden-death match between the Eastern and Western Conference champions. Naturally this winner-take-all game will be broadcast simultaneous to the Super Bowl. I'll call the regular season "October Madness," and the Finals will be renamed "January Surprise."

If any TV networks cry "foul," I will buy them and convert their format to continuous commercial-free reruns of I Love Lucy and Get Smart.

2. Buy the moon and rename it.

3. Buy the presidency, first of this country and afterward any country that comes to mind.

4. Buy Australia. I've always wanted my own island-continent-nation, and I love to watch toilets flush backward. Plus, I'd get to learn a cool accent by hanging out with my favorite blokes and sheilas down at the pub.

5. If there's any money left over, buy the crappiest Major League Baseball franchise and fire all players, coaches, and the manager. This year's winner will be the San Diego Padres. While I realize Seattle and Washington were actually a wee bit crappier, I like having the Mariners around, and the poor Nationals just relocated from the dregs of baseball in Montreal, purely a hockey town. I've never found anything useful to do with the Padres anyway. They will be replaced by the prettiest, most buxom female college softball players I can find, and their new name will be the Madres. Wait. I hear you protesting this one. Listen, I guarantee my team will draw more than the previous occupants who were overpaid, fat, lazy cry babies. Though my new team will surely lose all one-hundred and sixty-two games, no one will care. The team's new home will be in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

5a. If Major League Baseball complains, buy them and replace all twenty-nine remaining teams with pretty, female buxom college softball players.

5b. I get to manage the team.

6. Hell is still free.