Fiction: Million Dollar Monopoly Game

It was just a whim that you decided to go to McDonalds for dinner that night. You hadn't really felt like cooking dinner at home and it was convenient enough to stop and get something for everyone. It was just by chance that McDonalds had just started doing it's famous Monopoly game again, and seeing the sign in the drive thru reminding you of all the fun you used to have as a kid, collecting the pieces and hoping to win something really cool. Though as a teenager you were able to through much more money into eating at McDonalds just to play the game, then you did now as an adult. Now you have bills and responsibilities to your kids, and even though you had never won anything more than free food when you were younger, you still couldn't help to think that maybe if you played this time, just maybe you could win a super cool prize. So following another whim, you made all three meals super-sized, to get as many game pieces as possible.

Upon getting home, you separated the three meals, giving one to your son, one to your spouse and sat down next to the baby with your meal. Before you took even a single nibble of your food you said, "Okay everyone, peel your game pieces and lets see if we won anything."

Your son was excited to play, but your spouse just peeled the pieces of and threw them on the table, clearly assuming it wouldn't be anything special. You could see that the pieces weren't anything special, just Baltic and Connecticut Avenues. Your son took a little bit longer to peel his, but he squealed with delight when you told him he had won a breakfast sandwich. You turned to your own fry box to peel away the stickers, the anticipation and doubt making it seem as though time were slowing. One part of you felt that there was no way these pieces would win you anything special, while another part of you knew that if you believed it enough, you could will those pieces to be the pieces that won the million dollar prize.

You had already been studying manifestation and the laws of attraction for years, so you went through your usual process. You pictured the game pieces that you wanted to see, you envisioned the blue bars across Boardwalk and Park Place. You saw them already in your hand, you felt the excitement of finding out you had just won a million dollars. You tried to picture what your spouse would say or how your next day would go as you claimed the prize. You spent a while doing this before finally finishing the peeling of the first two pieces. As they game away from the fry box, you saw that one was for a McChicken, the other was St. Charles Place. Your heart faded a bit, but you tried to hold onto that small glimmer in your mind that you still had two more pieces and could win.

As you pulled back the third game piece you couldn't believe your eyes as you saw that it was blue and clearly said Boardwalk. It couldn't be, you thought. It was just a coincidence that you got one of the blue pieces, there was no probable way that you could get the two winning pieces from the same fry box. You were sure that McDonalds would be way to menacing to give it up that easily. And all the other times you'd played in the past, there were plenty of times that you had gotten one of the blue pieces. You'd just never gotten both at the same time. You grabbed the last piece with baited breath, knowing it couldn't win and hoping it would anyways. As the piece gave way you dropped it immediately after seeing it. It had scared you because it was blue too and you began to question if you were seeing things and had seen it wrong. But when you picked it up, you were not mistaken. It was blue and read Park Place, meaning you had the winning game pieces to the million dollar prize.

"Everything okay honey?" your spouse asks once they noticed you were just staring at the piece on the floor. You weren't exactly sure how to reply. It was still registering in your brain that you had really won and it wasn't some evil trick of the light. You tried to figure out how to form the words but couldn't, so you simply picked up the piece and laid it on the monopoly board on the table in front of you and shoved it over for your mate to see. At first they only glanced at it, but clearly did a double take before turning back to you with eyes as big as a deers caught in a head light.

"You won?"

You nod your head yes.

"You really won?"

"That's what it says."

"What did you win?" Your son asks with a mouth full of cheeseburger.

"A Million Dollars." You tell him proudly

"Is that a lot?" He asks curiously.

"Yes." You say with a chuckle, "It's a lot."

"Does that mean I can get a new helmet?" He asks excitedly.

"That means you can have two." You say with a laugh.

As you laid down in bed that night, wrapped lovingly in your partners arms, you tried your best to sleep but found it difficult as millions of thoughts filled your brain to the brim. You pictured what your day would start like as you got up to go and claim your prize. You'd get up earlier then usual, get the baby ready for a day out of the house and then take your son to the bus stop. Then you'd go to the McDonalds you got the pieces from and find out from them where to take the winning pieces. You figured you keep the game pieces in the car in a safe place until you found out just what to do with them. That way there would be any chance of one of the McDonalds staff trying to sneak them away from you. You didn't want to think about people that way, but you knew that it could happen, as people often changed when they saw the potential to have a lot of money for themselves and you didn't want to take the chance of becoming one of those victims. You'd just leave them in the car, park it where you could see it from inside and put the alarm on.

Your mind mulled over the thought that you might have to drive to some corporate office downtown, and the thought of going downtown didn't really thrill you all that much, but it made you wonder if they would call any of the news medias and if you had anything decent to wear... It also crossed your mind that it might take all day to go through paper work and bank accounts and all that fun stuff, so you would have to make sure your mate could be home to get your son from the school bus if you didn't make it back on time.

You tried to calm the thoughts in your mind and will yourself to go to sleep, repeating the phrase "these thoughts can wait until the morning" in your mind, but all that seemed to do was pause the thoughts long enough for you to fall just enough asleep that the thoughts turned into mini dreams that melted together. First you saw yourself leaving the house in your car and turning on your radio and finding your favorite song playing. Then you were at an office having your picture taken while holding your baby and a huge check. Ronald McDonald was there with his arm around you, as was the manager of the McDonalds you had gotten the pieces from. The dream then went into a myriad of newspaper pages with your picture and little stories on them. You saw yourself giving your mother at least 50,000 dollars to pay her back for all the money you had used up since you were a teenager, plus interest. Then you saw yourself shaking hands with a broker who had just told you'd made a lot more money from all of the investments you made with only a little bit of your money. You pictured buying new cars for your mom, your spouse and possibly your step-daughter who would be of driving age soon. You saw yourself writing out a list of all the things that needed to be done to the house, which would be easily taken care of now. You felt as though the dreams went on forever and by the time the alarm went off, it didn't seem as though you had laid there more than an hour, yet 6 hours had clearly passed since you had looked at the clock.

As you had expected, when you went to the McDonalds and asked to speak to the manager, they had told you that you would need to claim your prize at the corporate office in Redmond. You didn't mind though, as this would be worth the trip. They gave you directions and said they would notify the corporate office that you were coming.

When you got to the McDonalds corporate building in Redmond, you were surprised to find that it was amazingly quick and simple to claim your prize. Everyone greeted you with huge smiles as you filled out your banking information so they could make the check payable to you. You were slightly disappointed though, as you found out that you could only get $50,000 per year for 20 years, instead of one lump sum of a million dollars. Though you did find solace in the fact that at least you would have enough money every year to cover nearly all your basic necessities, meaning any money that came from working would be yours to spend.

As they took a picture of you holding the big check, you wondered what your mother would think after seeing the check you wanted to deposit in your account. You would drive out to her branch, which you usually wouldn't because of how far away it was, but today would be worth it. You hoped she wouldn't faint, but wondered if she would ask for any of it now. You gladly wanted to give her at least ten thousand and played over how she might react when you told her to deposit 40,000 in your account and put ten in hers.

Your mom had nearly fainted when you brought the check up to her and all the bank members insisted that you take a picture with all of them before you left. Before you had left, you had decided to write out one checks for ten thousand and take out $10,000 in cash, then you opened up an account for your son and deposited ten thousand in there. You had never held that much money in your hands in your life before and it felt great to have it in your wallet, which would even fold closed anymore.

Your first stop on the way home was to your spouses work to hand them the first check of ten thousand dollars. They nearly fainted to as you told them it was your gift and they could spend it any way they wanted to, on anything they wanted. But you made sure to tell them this was the only celebration money they would have. The rest would have to be used responsibly.

When your son got home, you told him that you had opened him an account and that he had so much money in there that we could go and buy him anything he wanted and go out anywhere he wanted for lunch and dinner. He was so excited he didn't know what to do with himself, but it didn't last long and before you could avoid it, he started rambling off the lists of things he wanted to go buy, most of which would be found at toys-r-us. You had expected it though, as his 6 year old mind was usually focused on toys-or-us.

It just so happened to be your luck that evening as you took your son to toys-r-us, that the one you had chosen to go to was closing down and trying to get rid of all their inventory, which meant that everything was at least 30% off original prices. It was hard to believe your luck was continuing, but it was fun going through the store with your son, trying to imagine where you would put everything in what seemed like a very small house. Which brought a new thought into your mind - should you think about getting a bigger home?

It was a lucky thing you had decided to take the truck to the toy story. You left that place with so many things, and that wasn't even everything we bought. The prices were so great that you didn't even spend over $1000 and got more than $3000 worth of toys. You felt guilty about spending so much on toys, even with the great value, but you knew that if nothing else good came of it, at least you could say that your kids would have more toys than they could handle all year, and the whole family could have a blast.

When you pulled into your driveway, the looks that came through the living room window were priceless. Your kids and your spouse had their jaws hanging wide open at the sight of the tied down pile of toys that sat in the back of the old truck. Of course, your family didn't stay awestruck for to long, as the kids clearly came to and rushed out the front door and into the back of the truck to see all that you and your son had brought home.

You were happy to see all their smiling and excited faces, and so you suggested that they get everything out and help you find some space under your make-shift-canopy-garage. The kids happily obliged, since it meant they'd get to take everything out and play with it first. Everyone took part in unloading the overloaded truck, and when it was completely empty, you stood back and laughed with your mate as you two watched your kids have more fun than it seemed like they had ever had at home.

At one point, he got really quiet, and after a few moments he turned to you with a serious yet almost excited face and said, "Honey... does this mean we can finally do it?"

"What ya mean?" You said as if you didn't already know, "Build you that garaged you've always wanted?"

He nodded with the same big doey eyes that your kids had, and you laughed, hesitating just long enough to make him wonder, before saying, "Of course."

The last seven days passed like a whirlwind in the south pacific, and it felt like we'd done more as a family then we ever had before. You weren't sure if anything could go wrong at that point, until you checked the mail that monday afternoon. The mailbox was so stuffed from notices and bills, that it took you 20 minutes to get everything out of it and try not to drop anything on your way into the house.

After reading through the top half of the notices, it was clear that every piece of debt you'd ever held, was now due in full payment. At first you nearly panicked seeing all these bills here to haunt you, though it only took a few moments for you to realize that you now had the means to pay off these bills. You were confident that not only could you pay them and have no debt, but you were sure that there had to be a way to stay out of debt forever. Your certainty level was up as you began to calculate the bills you'd already opened. Once you were through that small pile, you moved on hesitantly to the next pile of envelopes looming over you.

The first few were insignificant. You jotted down the amounts and added them to your total owed. The pile of mail was nearly at it's end, when you reached over and grabbed one that was from.... The IRS....