Today I will tell you the story about how I became a billionaire.
I was a billionaire for only about 20 or 30 minutes, but it was pretty great.
On our way to the Florida State Square Dance Convention, Mike and I decided to take a day trip through Pooler where we used to live just to see how much things have changed since we lived there.
We found ourselves sitting at the same old traffic lights using rote lines like,
"I don't remember that being there."
"Wow, this all looks different."
"Is that bank new?"
It's an activity that people who have experienced a lot of time like to do:
To be somewhere while providing a whole load of commentary brimming with senescence about the way things "used to be."
Let me walk you through a brief history of our time there.
(This will be important later, I promise.)
2011 - We meet at college in Statesboro. Mike graduates and gets a job in Pooler and commutes.
2012 - The world as we know it ends, we move into an apartment in Pooler, and I commute to finish grad school.
2014 - We buy a house in Pooler.
2019 - We move away from Pooler.
2020 - We sell the house in Pooler and have never placed rubber back on those roads until today.
So today we are sitting in traffic on US 80 reminiscing about all the little things we enjoyed about it: amazing sushi deals, training at the park for my half marathon, 79 cent Parker drinks from a long walk in the summer, or my liquor vendor that gave me free stuff that one time.
We started our business in 2018 and started to access more places on US 80 that year: our bank and the post office. During our time there, the post office actually moved buildings from a dumpy old little house that smelled like rotting cardboard in a bathroom to a building in part of a shopping center further down on US 80.
Me: Yeah, next to the Piggly Wiggly.
Mike: It's a Bi-Lo.
Me: No, the store there is a Piggly Wiggly.
Mike: No, it's not. I promise you that it's a Bi-Lo.
Me: BET. BET. BET. BET. How much do you want to bet? It's totally your choice how much you want to bet.
And at this point, I thought he was going to say something reasonable like a million dollars, but no.
Mike: One BILLION DOLLARS.
Sidebar: do you know what a billion actually is?
Like, it's more than 10M.
It's more than 100M.
It's 1000M!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Me: WOW. One billion dollars? It's ONNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!
You must understand how convinced we both were in our minds of the identity of this grocery store.
I personally remember being inside the alleged Piggly Wiggly holding one of their paper ads in my hands, and just standing there, shocked and offended at how high the prices were. That trip was so memorable because it's one of the few times I've entered a grocery store and walked out without buying anything.
But I know Mike never makes a bet that he is absolutely 100% about, so I checked my phone while sitting in traffic. I had to know if I was right.
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| Oh, I was so right. |
How glorious it was to sit in traffic and bask in billionaire abundance. The satisfaction of being right would continue to pay dividends for years and years to come!
Mike was incredulous and still determined to see it with his own eyes. Eventually, we did finally make it to the intersection of Pooler Parkway and US 80, with the Piggly Wiggly sitting happily on the right like it had always been there.
We continued our trip, journeying through the distant lands of nostalgia now packed with new restaurants, car washes, stores, and too many apartment buildings to count.
Further down the road, we talk about how Mike is going to pay me back. I get all giddy saying that I will send him an invoice.
When should the payments begin, next month?
That sounds cash money.
All the interest I would earn along the way would just be $plendid.
Just 60 easy payments of $19.8M!
Mike was beside himself. He was more okay about being an indentured servant for life, but less excited about having a false memory. He said he even made a joke about the Bi-Lo whenever we were around it. The prices were always so high at that store and he's like, "Yeah, it's in the name. They buy it low and then sell it high."
Why would Mike have a false memory about making a joke?
So I searched if there had ever been a Bi-Lo in Pooler, and what I found made my blood run cold.
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| It did exist. |
I found an article written in 2020 about how Piggly Wiggly owners were planning to buy the Bi-Lo in Pooler and make it a Piggly Wiggly.
Then I got really creeped out because we were not in Pooler by the time it converted to a Piggly Wiggly.
What I experienced was an ultra Mandela effect:
Mike remembered the Bi-Lo, but I had the very tangible Piggly Wiggly memory.
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| Wait - what do they mean by "yet again"? |
Then I scrolled down to read and discover the rich history of Piggly Wiggly in the 80s.
But one more news article held the missing link:
So to summarize:
It was a Piggly Wiggly when we moved there.
I was looking for grocery stores since I had just moved my life there in 2012.
I become appalled at high prices and never set foot in that store again.
Bi Lo buys it in 2013 and changes all the signage in a week.
As I drive past it for the next 7 years, it remains an overpriced Piggly Wiggly to me.
Piggly Wiggly buys back Bi-Lo in 2021, fulfilling the prophecy of being the Piggly Wiggly I always knew it was.
So in terms of this billion dollar bet, we were both right.
While continuing to drive in Florida, we passed by a Best Bet. I thought it was appropriate, so I took a picture.
It was supposed to look like this:
But ended up looking like this with Mike's ghosty face reflecting in the window.
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| It's probably the worst picture I've ever have the privilege of taking. |
I just think it's funny how we both remembered that location for the same high priced reason but had attached a different name.
We were living in different realities for so very long and then they finally converged.
And the stars aligned.
At a Piggly Wiggly.
So magical, so mystical.
A bet with stakes so high you could almost afford to shop there,
TWS
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