I got this idea from watching TV.
For the last few weeks I’ve been visiting the local council estates, asking if I can help them do a bunch of stuff, like painting murals, counseling abuse victims and sitting through absolutely terrible urban theater productions. Grim. I bring my wife along with her video camera and she films it. Anyway, I help out the poor people under the guise of just being a Regular Joe. I sort of ask them loaded questions, you know? About what they could do with lots of money etc. What would they do if somebody just rocked up with a big fat fucking cheque book and made all of their dreams come true. When they tell me I struggle to keep a straight face, and not to let the cat out of the bag. It’s hard. I just wanna blurt it out. You can’t do it like that though.
Yesterday I returned to the projects and sat down with the overly earnest people running them.
“I have something to tell you,” I said, ready to come clean. There were gulps. I could see the excitement in their poor faces. A few hugged each other. I think they knew.
“Have you guessed?” I asked. I saw some had, but they didn’t want to let themselves believe.
It was time for the big reveal. It was getting emotional.
“I am not really somebody who just wants to help the likes of you out…” I said, leaving it hang for a while. “I am actually…” I was starting to well up myself! Ihad to swallow hard, “I’m actually pretending to be a secret millionaire.” I ordered my wife to zoom in on their faces with a predetermined hand signal, to capture the tears, and by fuck there were tears. Before I left them – in stunned silence – I actually thanked them, their plight had made me feel better about myself, so it wasn’t just a one way street.