The Ballad of the Anonymous Powerball Winner

On Feb. 11 someone bought a winning Powerball lottery ticket worth $336.4 million dollars at the Stop & Shop on Newport’s Bellevue Avenue. You know, the street where the Astors and the Vanderbilts camped out every July and August in those modest little summer cottages overlooking the ocean. Understandably, the winner has so far been reluctant to go public, but the prize and its mystery recipient have been bubbler fodder for weeks. The following ballad, roughly written, humbly submitted, is dedicated to the hubbub:

From Adamsville to Quonochontaug
Everyone wants to know:
More than three hundred million in Powerball –
Who won all that dough?

Cameras are ready, pens are poised
To record someone’s instant fame.
The ticket is won, the game is done,
But we don’t even have a name.

A native? Or some visitor?
We can’t be sure which gender.
The only thing we’re certain of –
That’s a lot of legal tender.

The ticket was sold as one of three
At the Newport Stop & Shop
The store soon became a celebrity
With a weeklong photo op.

For days that’s all we talked about:
Who was the mysterious winner?
What would you do with all that cash?
Where would you go for dinner?

The lucky anonymous lottery champ
Probably hired a lawyer
To help with the financial windfall
And deal with Diane Sawyer.

The longer this goes, the more people ask
A question that sounds a bit funny.
We’d all like to win the lottery but
Is it possible to get too much money?

Would it really be worth all the trouble
And the constant aggravation –
All the kooks, all the friends, all the family,
All those suffering in desperation

All converging on your home
Begging for a little assistance,
Relentless in their hounding,
Furious at any resistance.

You’d have to change your phone and mail
And unplug your computer, too.
You’d probably have to leave the state
Just to escape the zoo.

You might need to go into hiding
Otherwise you’d have a whole nation
Watching your every move and step,
And joining you on vacation.

But all that most of us want for now
Is to see the face and learn the fate
Of the richest lottery winner in RI
So we wait and we wait and we wait…

This week’s question: What is one thing you would do if you won $336.4 million in the lottery?