A New and Improved Plan -- Part II

To anyone who has been following my blog, I am sorry to have left you hanging about the second part of my plan. My niece got married in Chicago this weekend, and I had to go to the wedding. (For what it’s worth, it was a beautiful wedding. I was a very proud uncle.) Nonetheless, I didn’t have time to post.

But today I am back. So I am going to tell you the second part of my plan. But before I do, I have some exciting news.

It turns out that the rumor was not just a rumor -- someone actually wants to trade a painting for my Dominic original. With any luck, I'll go visit her sometime this week to make the trade. I’ll tell you more about that, though, when it happens.

So here is a synopsis of the first part of the plan:

I am going to trade up to a Van Gogh. At least that’s what I keep telling myself. And I am going to hold a lottery for that Van Gogh once I have it. Anyone who trades with me will be eligible for a lottery ticket. And whoever wins the lottery drawing will get to keep the Van Gogh. That is part one of my plan. Well, it’s not really my plan. It’s the universe’s plan – the universe very kindly popped the plan into my head after I had asked it for some direction.

The universe popped the second part into my head as I was watering my plants.

I am going to hold a lottery for the Van Gogh amongst those people who traded with me. But of course, lottery tickets generally cost something. So that raises the question: how much should the lottery tickets cost?

Because I would want anyone who trades with me to benefit, I figure that I should give all and only those people who trade with me the right to purchase a lottery ticket for half the ticket’s real price. That way they could either sell their right for a considerable profit – presumably such a right could be sold for up to (the other) half of the real price of the ticket -- or enter the lottery at a highly discounted rate. It would be a win-win situation all around.

So that is the second part of the plan: I am going to give the right to purchase a lottery ticket for half of its real price to anyone who trades with me.

Of course, there is one question that must be addressed: how does one go about calculating the real price of a lottery ticket? I will wait until next time, however, to tell you how I think that question should be answered. I have to feed my cat.

Until then, I suppose that it can’t hurt to tell the universe:

I want to hold a lottery for a Van Gogh in which a small number of people have a chance to purchase a ticket for half of what the ticket is worth.
I want to hold a lottery for a Van Gogh in which a small number of people have a chance to purchase a ticket for half of what the ticket is worth.
I want to hold a lottery for a Van Gogh in which a small number of people have a chance to purchase a ticket for half of what the ticket is worth.