Jr Wins The Lottery

Sometimes when you think it just can’t get any worse, something comes along to make everything alright, and sometimes things really do get worse.

Previously, It Is What It Is.

Earnest parked his truck just off the road, grabbed his fishing pole, his tackle box, a can full of worms, and made his way down the bank to fish just under the bridge. The weather was perfect, not too hot, not too cold, and the sun had just come over the horizon only minutes before.

For months Earnest had dreamed of returning to his favorite fishing hole along the banks of the river where he hoped to catch a few trout, catfish, and bluegill. Here, he could calmly get away from the worries of running the farm, the backbreaking work, and Jr. Earnest had just baited his hook, cast his line to the slow moving water, and taken a seat on a washed up log when his telephone rang. “Durnit,” Earnest grumbled as he pulled his phone from his pocket, “what do you want?”

“Well that’s a fine way to talk to your wife,” Mable exclaimed. “If I’d known you was gonna be like that I wouldn’t have called you to tell you the good news.”

“Honey, I’m sorry,” Earnest groveled in earnest, “I wasn’t expecting you to call me. I thought it might be someone wantin’ money.”

“Well don’t you want to hear the good news?” Mable laughed.

“What good news?” Earnest inquired.

“Jr done won the lottery,” Mable answered.

“He did?” Earnest asked. “How’d he win the lottery?”

“He bought a lottery ticket,” Mable laughed aloud. “How do you think he won the lottery?”

“Honey,” Earnest shouted, “I’m coming home.”

“But Hon…” Earnest hung up the phone cutting Mable off.

“Your daddy is on his way home,” Mable said to Jr as the two of them had breakfast on the back porch. Mable and Jr often enjoyed eating their meals on the back porch when the weather allowed. “Reckon he’ll be here in an hour or so.”

Jr smiled in anticipation of showing Earnest his lottery winnings— the only winner he’d ever had. “I can’t wait to show it to him.”

“Your Daddy will be really happy for you,” Mable smiled.

Earnest pulled in his line, grabbed his tackle, and picked up the can of worms Jr had caught for him by grunting (pounding sticks into the ground) the night before. Earnest started running to the truck only to snag his pants on a limb, slip, fall, hit his head on a rock, and tumble into the river where the currents carried him about a mile down the river before Earnest came to his senses, and swam to the shore. “Wackemall,” Earnest shouted, “Now I got to drive home wet and muddy.”

Roughly 30 minutes later, after negotiating the overgrown trail back up stream, Earnest arrived back at his fishing hole only to discover his things had all be washed away. “Well ain’t that just my luck. Mable tole me I should keep my keys in my pocket instead of my tackle box. Now I got to hot wire my own truck.”

About 15 minutes later Earnest got the truck started and sat out on his way home.

Ten miles or so down the road Earnest rolled up oh a license check, part of a crackdown by the Welldone County Sheriff’s office. Earnest slowed to a gentle stop just as one of the young deputies walked over to the door of his truck. “Good morning,” Earnest smiled.”

“License and registration,” the deputy ordered.

“Yes, Sir,” Earnest smiled as he handed his driver’s license to the deputy, “My registration is in the glove box. I’ll get it.”

The deputy looked at the license then said, “Sir, would you step out of the truck?”

Earnest had no idea why the deputy was doing so but didn’t want to get in trouble so he replied, “Yes, Sir. Right away, Sir,” as he opened his door and got out of his truck. Earnest always thought it funny to be addressing deputies who were barely out of high school as sir, but did so anyway.

The deputy then led him to the back seat of his patrol car and opened the door for Earnest to get inside. Earnest watched as the deputies searched his truck. About 30 minutes later they finished their search and walked back to the patrol car. “What’s wrong?” Earnest asked.

“Sir,” the deputy answered, “your license is expired, there’s no registration in the truck, and most importantly, can you tell us why your truck is hot wired? Did you steal it?”

“Oh no Sir,” Earnest answered, “I didn’t steal it, I lost my keys.”

“Just stay put,” the deputy said, “while we talk to our CO and find out what he wants us to do.”

Earnest was getting worried by the time the deputy came back to the car 30 minutes later. He couldn’t understand why it was taking so long. Back in the old days all the deputies were his buddies, but since they had all retired he didn’t know what the younger deputies might do. “Sir,” the deputy said, “I’m sorry it took as long as it did. The computers went down and we had to wait to run your numbers. Anyway, you’re all clear except for that expired license.”

“Just my luck,” Earnest mumbled, first I fall in the river and now this.”

“Oh don’t worry,” the deputy said while opening the car door, “I wrote you a warning ticket. Your court date is ten days from now and if you get a renewal before that date they’ll throw the whole thing out.”

“Thank you,” Earnest said as he walked back to his truck, twisted the wires together, and slowly started on his way.

Earnest had only traveled a few miles when he heard an explosion and his truck began driving erratically, “Oh great!” Earnest shouted. “Now I got to change a tire. I hope there’s air in that spare.”

The spare was almost flat so after mounting it on the truck Earnest resumed driving, very slowly until he came upon a store where he could inflate his tire for .50 cents. “Great,” Earnest groaned, “just great. I ain’t got no money on me. Whatever happened to free air?”

After a few minutes Earnest finally managed to sell a pair of pliers for .50 cents to air up his tire. “Durnit,” Earnest mumbled as he inflated his spare, “I paid twelve dollars for that pair of pliers not 2 weeks ago. Guess it’s a good thing Jr won the lottery.”

Earnest was almost half way home when he came upon cows in the road — hundreds of cows in the road. “Why don’t they fix their fences?” He shouted, “My cows ain’t in the road.” Slowly he made his way through the heard, shouting, blowing his horn, and sometimes nudging the heifers out of his way. It was then he came upon an angry bull who repeatedly rammed the front of the truck before giving up and walking away. “Good thing Jr won that lottery,” Earnest laughed, “I’m going to need a new truck.”

A few more miles down the road was a school bus broken down in the middle of a one lane bridge. About an hour later the tow truck arrived to tow the bus away.

Back home Jr asked, “Sure is taking Paw a long time to get here, reckon he’s okay?”

“I sure hope so,” Mable answered. “I tried to call him but it just keeps tellin’ me his phone is out of service.”

“You reckon he forgot to charge it again?” Jr asked.

“Probably,” Mable answered. “He has a hard time with all this newfangled techno stuff.”

Earnest was about 10 miles from home when his truck stopped running. “Well ain’t that just great,” he shouted. “Out of gas again! Well I guess I’ll just have to walk the rest of the way. I sure hope my beggars toe don’t start acting up again. Havin’ wet feet all day don’t help.”

Hours later Earnest walked into the farmhouse where he found Jr and Mable asleep on the davenport with the television still on. Tired and sore he whispered, “Ya’ll waitin’ up for me?”

“We was beginnin’ to worry,” Mable answered. “You ain’t stayed out this late since we was teenagers — what happened?”

“It’s a long story,” Earnest smiled, “but now that it’s over I’m happy to be home. Now show me that lottery check.”

“Check?” Mable asked.

“The check they give you when you win,” he replied.

“Oh they didn’t give him no check,” Mable smiled. “They gave him cash.”

“Cash,” Earnest exclaimed, “why would they give a boy that much cash? Somebody might rob him.”

“Don’t be silly,” Mable answered, “it was only ten dollars.”

Earnest could only shake his head while looking at the floor.

Continued in Jr Gets a Motorcycle.