How My Wife Came To Know Fireball

"Enunciate, for Heaven's sake!"

It is not that I slur my words, nor that I have a particularly lazy tongue. But my wife shouts these words at me often. Perhaps it is my slight Wisconsin accent. But that can't be it since my wife also happens to be from there. Or I am just soft on my consonants.

Even answering the phone at work can sometimes be a bit comical. My name is Jim, but often times what the caller on the other end hears is Jeff, or Chip.

It is what it is, I suppose.

I have mentioned before that I like to play the lottery. I mean, who can pass up the chance at 100's of million dollars winning a jackpot for a chance that only costs a mere $2?

So, I play, and I play often. And one of the two big multi-state lotteries that pays out big if you win happens to be the Powerball.

I was at our local Casey's General Store, which is a gas station and convenience store common to the area. I was there to buy a lottery ticket while pumping my gas. I arrived at the counter and told the clerk working there, "I'll take a Powerball, please."

I don't recall what the jackpot was at the time. It fluctuates quite a bit from $20 million to $1 billion depending on if there has been a recent winner or if there has been some time since somebody has won.

Not that the jackpot matters at all.

"Sure thing," the clerk said and went to work on fulfilling my request.

I wasn't paying attention to what he was doing. I was too busy fishing in my wallet for the $2 I would need to pay for my ticket.

But what he handed me was not a lottery ticket, but instead a brown bag. "$3.95," the clerk said.

This was completely wrong. For one thing, lottery tickets do not get put into brown bags, and they do not cost $3.95. So, I opened the bag and reached inside, and pulled out an airplane bottle of Fireball Cinnamon Whiskey.

"What's this for?" I asked.

"You asked for a Fireball, didn't you?" the clerk said with a discerning furled brow.

"No," I said. "I wanted a Powerball lottery ticket."

"Oh," he said and chuckled. "I swore you asked for a Fireball."

He offered to take it back and get me what I wanted. But I decided to keep it. "Maybe my wife will like this," I told the clerk. So, I paid for the Fireball Cinnamon Whiskey, and got my lottery ticket, and brought home the little bottle the clerk had sold me.

To this day my wife's favorite thing to drink is Fireball, and we have bought several larger bottles since. But of course when I told her how that little bottle came to be, that's when she told me that I needed to be enunciate more.

In the end it all worked out. My lack of being able to take the cotton out of my mouth introduced my wife to something very delicious that she enjoys quite a bit to this day.

It may never have happened had I enunciated, for Heaven's sake!

Lead image original photo by Porwest.