Two economists walked into a pancake house.
The waitress came to them. She was thin, her hair was straight, black, cut short, her skin was dark brown, her nose straight and long. But what was most striking were her golden eyes, rimmed with brown. She smiled expectantly. Her white clip-on nametag said "Hi my name is Yolanda!"
"Two," said Jacob Wasserman, standing straight, holding up two fingers. Balding, he wore suspenders, a blazer, and a bow tie. Debashish Chakrabati stood behind, a head shorter, but a little wider and more ruffled looking in a plain maroon button-down shirt.
"Follow me," she said, sautering to their booth. The restaurant was lined with dusty little dancing statues of children and rabbits, plastic tropical plants, and fresh seasonal paper fold-out turkeys.
"Big lotteries and small lotteries can't be equivalent," said Jake as they walked. "Money appreciation would have to be perfectly linear for them to be the same."
"Obviously," said Debu.
As they sat, she gave them menus. She talked with her hands. "Y'all want something to drink?"
"Coffee," said Debu.
"Orange juice," said Jake.
"Uh, I apologize for asking," said Debu, "but what nationality are you? I can't place it."
"My family's Irish," said Yolanda.
"You don't look Irish," said Debu.
"You don't sound Irish," said Jake.
"Well, that's my story, and I'm sticking with it," she teased, tossing her short hair and leaving to get coffee.
"Just saying it's nonlinear isn't saying much of anything," said Debu. "Hardly anything is really linear. Which is better, big or small? Why? Maybe there's some medium size that's best, or a medium that's worse than both big and small?"
They perused the menus.
Yolanda returned with the drinks. "So what looks good?" she asked.
"What's Bob's Breakfast?" asked Debu.
"Two eggs, bacon, hashbrowns, plus an extra plate of three pancakes with syrup and butter."
"That one!" said Debu.
"And you?" she asked Jake. "What's your fancy?"
"What do you recommend?" asked Jake.
"Wellll," she drawled, hand to her chin, "that depends what you like. What sorta things d'you normally get?"
"Usually a Caesar salad. Or some chicken," offered Jake.
"Hm," she thought. She tapped her pencil while thinking. "How about a Caesar salad with chicken?"
"Excellent! I'll take that," said Jake.
"I bet you two are really smart," said Yolanda. "I bet you have a job where you get paid for just sitting there thinking hard all day."
"We're both economics professors," said Jake.
"Wow!" said Yolanda. "Waitress, you know? We know these things! I'll get your orders right up!"
"She's pandering to us," said Jake.
"Quite likely," said Debu.
They talked and sipped.
"I'm pretty sure lotteries are a well studied area, and big lotteries beat little lotteries. There's big money for the state in getting it right, so it's surely well-beaten territory. I recall that since you almost always lose either way, you're paying for imagining winning, and the imagined winnings are bigger with the bigger lottery."
"I agree," said Jake. "But it's not economic. Beyond some limit ... say ten million ... the enjoyment you can get from the extra delta money diminishes drastically, but the probability of winning keeps dropping inverse linearly. Anyone would be much better off opting for a lower payout and a higher chance of winning."
"Homo Economicus won't play the lottery in the first place," observed Debu.
"Which brings us back to the question, what are actual humans thinking?"
Yolanda arrived with the food. "Your eggs ... and your other plate of pancakes, I'll put it over here," she reached, "... and some syrup. And a Caesar salad for you. Can I get you anything else?"
"Do you like big lotteries or small lotteries better?" asked Debu.
"Small ones, I suppose," said Yolanda.
"Why?" asked Jake.
"Well, what would you do if you won a big one? So much more money to worry about," she said. And she was off.
The two economists concentrated on eating their food.
"You know, that was a rational response," said Debu, when he came up for air.
"No it wasn't," countered Jake. "She didn't mention the increased probability of success at all. She saw the extra money as NEGATIVE VALUE."
"That's an odd attitude for a waitress," said Debu. "They can't make much."
"I doubt they have any health benefits," said Jake. "Emergencies come all sizes, so extra money would always appear good."
Yolanda was back, carrying a coffee pot. "Need anything?"
"More coffee?" asked Debu. She refilled his cup.
"If you won the lottery," asked Jake, "what would you do with it?"
"Oh I dunno ..." mused Yolanda. "Pay off my husband's relatives' student loans. And invest the rest, I suppose."
Debu laughed, spraying coffee across the table.
"Oh I'll get that!" said Yolanda, pulling a cloth from her belt and cleaning the table.
"That's the most I'm-already-rich response I've ever heard," said Debu.
"You got me! I KNEW you two were smart! I'm filthy rich. Luck of the Irish!" She spotted another table calling for her. "You good? Good!" and she was off again.
"You think she's pulling our leg?" asked Jake.
"No," said Debu. "I think she really is rich. You heard her answer our questions. She's used to having more money than she really needs."
"Well she didn't get that way waitressing. Unless she gets REALLY big tips. No. I can't imagine even that."
They finished off their meal. Yolanda returned with the check.
"So," said Jake. "Enlighten us? How does a waitress come to be, as you say, filthy rich? Luck of the Irish?"
"I was born rich," said Yolanda. "Great-grandpap left me and all my siblings a quarter million each when we were born. Then a few years ago, my grandpa bought each of us a house if we didn't have one already. And left my children a million each."
"Which begs the question, where did they get it?" asked Debu.
"The Irish, they make their own luck! My great-great-grandfather was somewhat well off. Had a small potato chip business during the 1920's. During the depression, when everyone else was broke, he wrote his will giving tens of thousands to each of his grandkids, saying they had to keep it invested in stock and do as he did.
"So these kids grow up with stock accounts, which grew to a hundred thousand, then a million each. Granduncle Jeb, he was a math whiz, like y'all! He played with the idea and announced the old man had it right. The game was to get stocks as a baby, keep it all your life, use a little of the interest to live off of, then around when you're eighty buy your grandkids houses and give all your baby great-grandkids big stock accounts (but you have to ask the parents' permission). If everyone works too, it doesn't take much per baby to keep the ball rolling. If you don't work it takes more, but it's still doable.
"He said that it only works if just a few people know the trick. If everyone knew, not enough work would get done, and the stock market wouldn't grow. If you want everyone in on it, everyone can be rich, but somehow enough people have to keep working anyways.
"My ma was pretty well off this way, but me, I'm rich. The scheme works too well. It just keeps growing. We have to keep pulling more relatives into the scheme to know what to do with it all. I'm a waitress so that I'm still doing my share."
"Don't some of them blow it all?" asked Debu.
"Of course. There's ... I know some. Them who can't control their spending, they're out. We might try again on their children."
"So, you don't believe inherited wealth is bad?" asked Jake. "That you're hoarding the money from all the unprivileged?"
"Are you hearing yourself?" asked Yolanda. "This isn't hoarding wealth. It started with my great-great-grandpa, and now there's dozens of us. It doubles or more every generation. Eventually, it will be the whole world. It's the goose that lays golden eggs. They just have to learn to control their spending. And keep working anyhow."
"What's the investment strategy?"
"It used to be a few big mutual funds. Since there's been index funds, it's been 100% QQQ. Never touch it, and it doubled about every 10 years."
"Why a waitress? You could do charity work."
"Ma says someone paying you proves you're not wasting your time. My brother drives a garbage truck."
"You don't care waitressing has no health benefits."
"A little. It might mean I'm wasting time, right?"
"Not overly concerned about Social Security."
"I like the idea, for others, y'know."
"Inheritance tax?"
"That might get us. But if anything under about twenty million isn't taxed, it doesn't really matter." Another table was calling. "Gotta run, y'all have a good day now!"
"Have you ever heard such a thing?" asked Debu.
"No," said Jake. "I haven't. We've talked about a post-scarcity world. But her family's been living it for generations, working as waitresses. And it's contagious."
"Is she right, everyone could do it?"
"She's right, enough people would have to keep working anyhow. I don't think the Homo Sapiens I know would have enough people working anyhow."
"Well, if she's right, then nobody will need to work for money anymore," said Debu.
"We're going to get some publications out of this," said Jake.
"Probably," said Debu.
Later, Yolanda found she'd been left a $100 tip. She was very happy with herself. Even knowing she didn't really need it made her happy. I did good, she thought.
This was in response to a prompt on reddit.com r/WritingPrompts, "...Lastly, money is no object. After all, if you pull this off, we won't need money any more." I was true to the letter of that prompt, I think, though not its spirit.