I don’t know about you, but I sure had a lot of mental fun thinking about the possibility of winning the $500 million Powerball jackpot this week.

After hearing numerous news reports on the topic Wednesday morning, I suggested to Honey that he might want to find a friend and go for a drive after his Lions Club meeting. Destination: Paxton. Purpose: Buying a ticket, of course.

What, he wondered, would I do if my brave hunter brought home a trophy ticket?

Well, I replied, I’d go ahead and buy the vehicle I’ve been considering. I’d buy him one, too, but he said he likes his 1999 Camry just fine. I mentioned a few people I’d like to help, added that I’d hire a handyman to help me out with some things I haven’t been able to get fixed around the house, invest the rest and go make a newspaper, just like I do every day.

A friend said the handyman comment wasn’t nice. The handyman comment was calculated: Within 10 minutes, Honey was on the phone; by afternoon on Friday, help had come and gone and the projects were completed.

And by Wednesday afternoon, like millions of Americans, we had Powerball tickets. I had to google the topic to even be able to read our tickets and determine if we had won. Regular gamblers, we ain’t.

With odds something like a one in 187 million chance of winning, we didn’t expect to win. But we certainly had no chance at a claim with no tickets.

And as our collective conscious turned from turkeys to Christmas lists, pausing to think what we might truly need was a good exercise.

We are relatively healthy; live in a house that more than meets our needs; have health insurance, groceries in the refrigerator and pantry, work and a retirement check. Our closets overfloweth, as do our bookshelves. Lord knows we don’t need any more stuff.

But it would be fun to put smiles on the faces of people missing some of the things with which we have been blessed.

There are some who say the best part of a trip is planning it. Perhaps planning how to spend your winnings would be the best part of winning the lottery too, because evidence shows it can ruin your life.

For this week, I’m happy just thinking about winning … and having a handyman help Honey with his Do List.