The arithmetic is dizzying. If you were lucky enough to be holding a cheque for $26,598,265 and you just dumped it in your everyday savings account, which offers 3 per cent per annum, it would earn you a cool $800,000 a year.
You'd have to pay tax on that, of course, so you'd have a mere $534,625 to come and go on. That's a bit over $10K a week in the hand, if you reckoned yourself as working a 40-hour week, although one assumes that working a 40-hour week would become an alien concept within a reasonably short time.
But if, say, you were working the early shift as a checkout operator at a grocery store in Te Kauwhata, you might be inclined to tell the boss that he'll need to increase your hourly rate to $258, because you've been offered another job at $257 doing nothing at all. All the while, of course, that $26 million will be sitting in the bank.
This is the situation a man called Trevor faces. And it's not all as good as it sounds. He has suddenly become very popular. So, after shortening his name to Trev - perhaps as a first step towards making himself inconspicuous - he's disappeared to have some time to think things over.
Trev's no fool: he is clever enough to wonder whether the propositions flooding in, including those from ladies apparently swooning with passion, are entirely sincere. So taking time to consider his options is a smart move.
