Dime a Million

There is a man and his name is Mr. Jones. By all conventional reasons anyone would think that Mr. Jones is a normal man. Anyone would be right for interpreting the conventional reasons in that manner. No he is not the literary image of the normal man, in the way that by reading about him you see that he is so normal in his ways that he becomes an odd conglomerate of all joe-schmo stereotypes. He is just a regular man. This man won’t be found in any story as the focus unless; of course he is acted upon by the inciting incident. Please keep in mind that this man is not so normal that he is found odd, as would be shown in any cinematic fashion. His lifestyle is stereotypical but not to a humorous degree. Some days he eats toast for breakfast some days it’s frosted mini-wheats and some days he is just too busy in the morning to eat the most important meal of the day. To put it in the clearest way possible, this is the kind of man that you would meet when you went over to a friend’s house and the dad came home from work. You’ll think, “oh Mr. Jones is home”. While he will think, “oh so we are feeding one more kid tonight”. Normal like that. The inciting incident of course happens on this man’s birthday. Some of the guys at the office bought Mr. Jones a lottery ticket. As inciting incidents go, Mr. Jones is a lucky man and wins. Mr. Jones is one of those silent types while winning 7.3 million post-taxes. Lots of pushing and shoving goes on between cubicles, as his friends rejoice in the turn of events. Those not in the vicinity only slightly raise themselves out of their roller chairs just enough to see over the cubicle wall but still bending at the knees as a personal reassurance that yes they are “still working”. As explained before Mr. Jones is the quiet type in these situations, he just can’t let these shocks sink in quick. Mr. Jones is elated as the boss in what he thinks was a very smart managerial decision sends him home for the rest of the day. Wouldn’t want the whole office going ape and losing a day’s work to one of the state Gov attempts at easing budget troubles through chance games. The guys from the office promise to call later to see how Mrs. Jones took the shock. The Misses is home already getting ready to pick up the kids from soccer, she of course lets out squeals and tears and just can’t stop hugging her lucky husband. Somewhere during the 6th or 7th go over of the bright yellow decorative winning ticket, Mrs. Jones catches the catch. Wither the winning of the lottery or the appliance of the catch to the life of Mr. Jones is the inciting incident is up to any organized and informed discussion. The catch, in fact can be caught easily in the title by which it is named. Dime a Million. Now there has to be someone or some group that makes up the themes for each lottery game. Obviously this lottery brain-trust thought it witty to change Dime a Dozen and to Dime a million. Whoever thought it would be a good marketing ploy to actually bring that phrase to a literal fruition must have a slight grudge against humanity akin to any Genocide mastermind. But yes the Jones couple caught onto the catch that the 7.3 million post-taxes they would be receiving would be completely in dimes. How the completely everyday Mr. Jones will adjust to cede inciting incident will be the topic of discussion in any future post.