FORT MILL , S.C. - The splurge.

Doug Scroggins knows what his would be. A trip overseas. Maybe Italy and the south of France. Five-star all the way.

Hubert Chambers, a few feet away, might prefer a trip to Hawaii with his wife.

Disney World, says Robin Clyburn. With her grandkids.

What would one line of dreamers, at one convenience store, do with the Powerball jackpot?

Tonight's 10:59 p.m. drawing is expected to be worth $250 million, the fourth-largest amount in Powerball history. The jackpot has prompted long lines at stores throughout South Carolina and 24 other states with the lottery.

On Tuesday, the lunchtime line at Fort Mill's Red Rocket store grew to as many as 75 Powerball players. That's dozens of fantasies, hundreds of tickets and one delicious question:

After you've been responsible with your winnings, paid off your bills, bought your momma a car -- what would you do for you?

FORT MILL , S.C. - The splurge.

"I'd buy me a house, a car," said Natasha Knox of Charlotte. "It would have to be some kind of sports car."

She thought a moment. Yes.

"A Hummer," she said.

Other vehicular reveries involved a Cadillac Escalade, a Porsche, a deep-blue Ford pickup with fat tires. Then there were Panthers season tickets, a new kitchen, a new house, a beach house -- each of which could be bought for far less than the $141 million pretax lump payment the winner has the option of receiving.

Some in line insisted, quite nobly, that they'd find their greatest pleasure in tithing to their church or helping the homeless. Charlotte's Alicia Harris said she would come right back to this store, to this line, and give money to others who play the lottery.

"I'd come here and hand out $6 million," she said, to be precise.

A few feet away, Dot Sykes arched an eyebrow toward Harris. "You tell me when," she said. "I'll give you my phone number."

So it went in the line, where strangers laughed about extravagances, joked about leaving their jobs, made fast friends in the slow-moving procession.

None, however, mentioned that the probability of winning the grand prize tonight is one in 120,526,770. In real terms, that would be a line of single-ticket buyers that stretched out the door of Red Rocket, then one mile to Interstate 77, then 530 miles north to Cleveland, then back and forth 85 times.

All of which mattered little at the Red Rocket, which sold a Charlotte man the winning ticket for an $88 million Powerball jackpot in May. Nor did anyone in line seem inclined to debate the ethics of lotteries. Tuesday was about possibilities, fanciful though they might be.

"That's part of the excitement," said Charlotte's Demond Williams, who has often pictured himself winning, so much so that he keeps a phony million-dollar bill on a mirror in his bedroom.

His dream? A building in Concord that once housed a billiards club called Kramer & Eugene's.

"It's a beautiful building," he said. "I'd reopen it as a Christian pool hall. It would be a place for kids to go."

The splurge. It is, for many, worth the buck just to think about it, to picture ourselves as more wealthy or more benevolent, to imagine that, just once, the numbers might smile on us in a big way.

What would happen then?

"I'd probably pass out," said Skip Clowney of Kannapolis.

But: "When I came to, there's no telling what I'd do."