| In the fall of 1999, a Manhattan office worker named John Falcon went online and discovered that he had won forty-five million dollars in the lottery. His life had changed forever—except for all the ways in which it didn’t. The following spring, The New Yorker’s Rebecca Mead profiled the newly flush Falcon, observing the surprising and idiosyncratic experiences of a man who’d hit the jackpot. Falcon, a native of the Bronx, had been working as a software formatter when his favored lottery numbers—based on old addresses—came through, but he’d long nursed dreams of theatrical stardom, creating and performing in a one-man show called “A Short Puerto Rican Guy Sings Songs of Angst.” His new existence could be disorienting: thanks to significant local-news coverage, Falcon was regularly recognized on the street, and he’d started getting voice mails from women claiming he’d given them his number. (Unlikely: Falcon was gay.) Between shopping sprees, Mead reported, Falcon could be comically thrifty, and his new windfall sometimes presented unexpected complications. Still, sudden prosperity came with obvious advantages. Shortly after Falcon received his good news, his harried boss asked if he might be willing to pitch in a bit at the office. “Are you crazy!” Falcon responded. “I’m never getting up that early again!” | 
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