The first few moments after winning the lottery are just like, well, winning the lottery—but the next days and weeks can be a different story altogether. Within 72 hours of finding out that she was the sole claimant of the 20-state $78.8 million Powerball jackpot—which pays out $50.4 million in cash after taxes—Farrah Slad, 21, who is single and works as a $9-an-hour assistant at a mortgage company in Brainerd, Minn., had been inundated with dozens of calls from friends, media, real estate agents, car dealers and some very friendly men. When a photographer from PEOPLE phoned to ask if she would agree to have her picture taken to celebrate her good fortune, she burst into tears. "I just can't put on a happy face for you," she said. "My life is totally upside down. I have to take control. I have to look out for No. 1."

Slad's longtime friends in Brainerd expect her to be just fine, thank you, once the shock wears off. "She's a smart girl," says her best friend, Melonie Ellstrom, 25. "She won't fall for a line." The irony is that Slad rarely plays the lottery and had purchased five $1 tickets as a lark. Slad didn't even choose the winning numbers herself; she allowed the online lottery terminal to randomly select digits for her.

As for what she will do with her new fortune, Slad intends to trade in her '91 Acura Integra for a Lexus, move out of the $510 apartment she shares with two roommates and into a big house in the woods with a pool, and buy her parents—dad Greg is a forklift operator, and mom Nancy is a nursing assistant—whatever they want. She plans to quit her job and travel—a lot. Said Slad, who rarely ranges far from Brainerd: "I want to go everywhere."