You’re walking home, late one night, when all of a sudden there’s a rustle in the bushes and a wiry, sparky-eyed little figure leaps out in front of you. Turns out he’s an eccentric billionaire, and tonight he decided that he would buy the first person he met after midnight any one object in the world that that person wanted. That person is you.
There are a few rules. You can’t sell or give away the object, and that condition passes to your heirs, so it’s no good asking for the world supply of gold unless you actually want it sitting in your back garden for the foreseeable future. This isn’t about making you rich; it’s about giving you something you love passionately but could never otherwise have.
No, you can’t have the cure for cancer, or a date with George Clooney, or George Clooney himself. It has to be an object.
It has to exist. You can’t ask for a contemporary portrait of Shakespeare with his family, because as far as we know there isn’t one. If you want a First Folio, though, it’s all yours.
It doesn’t need to be technically for sale. If the painting you want is in some museum’s collection, the billionaire is willing to throw them so much money that they’ll be able to replenish their walls for decades to come. You can have that Renoir.
What’ll you have?
I get to change my mind as many times as I want, because it’s my thread so there, but today I really deeply want this. I think it’s utterly breathtaking.
I’m not sure the billionaire would go for that. No making money off of the object. Again, it’s only about getting you the thing you want, not about making you rich.
I figure it could be ‘the 777 and a lifetime’s worth of fuel/storage space/maintenance time/pilot time’, though.
Well, I earn $10 Million for the first 10 months and blow in all on p**** and beer all around the world in the remaining two months, so I end up dead even at the end.
Might be dead at that rate in three years, but what a three years it would be…:p:D
I want my own business, supported by an enormous trust so that it doesn’t have to be financially successful and I can just potter around doing all the crafty creative things I love.
That isn’t a single object, but it is a single discrete desired thing that won’t make me any money (trust me on that) but that would keep me happily occupied my whole life long.
Hmmm, a great big Victorian-style mansion, with a wrap-around porch, and all the little dormer windows and cupolas and things. Two swimming pools, one big outdoor one, and one small indoor pool, because I absolutely love to swim.
Oh, and Penguins season tickets. Center ice, baby. Oh yeah.
I’m gonna buy a yarn store so I can knit myself to death. Now I just have to decide which one. (I’m not going to sell any of the yarn or supplies; gonna keep it all! all for me!)
Please purchase for me the Senkaku/Diaoyudao/Diaoyutai Island chain in the East China Sea. They’re one chain of islands with three different names (Japanese, Taiwanese, Chinese, respectively) that are currently the center of geopolitical concern and tension.
I would hope that, by removing it from the claim of those three nations (and, for that matter, putting it in the collection of a citizen of the United States – hopefully that would also mean protected by the USA, as well) China would stop its bullying annexation efforts. I would then put in some emergency supplies and a few minimalist touristy embellishments and declare the area a marine resort for campers and survivalists. You can stay no more than a week but you can’t leave traces – and no projectile weapons allowed (not even spearguns).
I’d administer site permits and fees with a 2-year waiting period. Oh, and just for the hell of it, I’d add a few misleading markings and foster a rumor that Emelia Earhart left something on one of the islands.
–G!
And, as long as you’re buying, I’d like to do similar stuff with those shoals off the Philipines as well, for the same reason.
I want a two sheet ice rink in my town, plus a studio rink with room for expansion to 3 sheets. Is he funding maintenance? I’d want funding for utilities, staff and maintenance for 10 years. By then my knees will have gone out and I’ll be into judging. In 10 years I could get some coaches in to build a championship figure skating program.
How are you going to pay the property taxes on the mansion? I would have that problem if I got a huge house, a mansion can have 6+ figures a year in property taxes that the billionaire won’t cover.
