People often ask if it bothers me that I'm not rich. Usually they phrase it like, "Boy, you sure aren't rich, are you? I'd probably jump in front of a train if I were you. Are you going to finish that doughnut?"

But if I had a billion dollars, I'd just have to spend it, paying people and paying people and paying people until they let me be an astronaut.

Or a senator. Or, in one botched little day trip, commander of a nuclear sub.

Wealthy people inevitably buy something dumb, since dumb stuff is what's left once you have what you really need. But the new generation of moguls has started buying, well, jobs.

For example, Dennis Tito had a dream – possibly Freudian – to be in space (which is silly, when you think about it, we're all in space; mine, at the moment, is at my desk). So he bought a ride on a Russian ship to the international space station, agreeing to pay for anything he breaks, not sue NASA if he gets hurt and not complain when he finds out the whole thing is happening in a warehouse in Bayonne, with two guys rocking the "ship" back and forth with sticks.

Other wealthy folks are buying ambassadorships and paying ballplayers to hang out with them. It's as if rich people think the employment line is some kind of theme park.

Nothing demonstrates this better than these news stories, which, after careful research, I made up:

BOSTON – "I always wanted to be an orthodontist, ever since I saw one in the movies," said Seymore Aronson, who made billions of dollars marketing an elastic waistband that doesn't melt in the dryer. "Now, no one can stop me!"

That is why Aronson paid $10 million to fix people's teeth.

"I felt right at home in the first mouth I opened," Aronson said. "It's like I belonged in there."

Carla Poynter, a dental hygienist who assisted Aronson, said the experience was inspirational.

"Well, patients ended up with their teeth sticking out in nine directions," Poynter said. "But that man sure liked looking in people's mouths. I mean, he really liked it. Really. You see where I'm going with this?"

SANTA FE – Carl Fortis became rich by decorating the lobbies of luxury hotels. But this week, he's a lawyer in a murder trial. He holds the defendant's life in his hands, and he's already allowed two white supremacists on the jury.

"Wheeeee! I'm Perry Mason!" Fortis said.

Everyone has been won over by Fortis' enthusiasm.

"I'm probably going to fry," said the defendant, Marc Curtis. "But come on, look at the guy. Look at him in his little suit."

SAN JOSE – What do you do when you've made $6 billion selling software? Work at a nursing home.

"My biggest thrill is periodically reminding Mrs. Francis what year it is," said William Huggins, who paid $12 million to work at the Tyrell Senior Complex. "And also jumping out of the way when she throws cutlery."

CHERRY HILL – Arlo Edwards flossed his teeth that morning, realizing he should have done it earlier, since he found bits of carrot. And corn. When did he have corn? When the heck did he have corn? Yeesh, maybe this wasn't even corn. Anyway, then he went to his first assignment, for the real estate mogul had paid $12 million to work as a newspaper reporter.

He would even get to write this story about Arlo Edwards spending the week as a newspaper reporter.

Boy, if it wasn't corn, what the heck was it?

Arlo Edwards' first assignment – or rather, Edwards' first assignment, because editors say to refer to people by their last names on the second reference. Boy, this is hard. What was I talking about? Oh yeah. Corn. See, I usually don't eat corn, which is why I'm confused. So anyway, Edwards' first assignment was to cover a zoning board meeting. Aaaaaand he didn't take notes so a lot of this is guess work, but... Corn soup! That's it! I totally forgot about the corn soup!

Anyhoo, the board agreed to clear out the town, utilizing car bombs and hired thugs. So we'd all better move. I probably should have mentioned that earlier, heh?