Out of my '20,000' League at Caribou

I ordered my usual medium sized dark roast coffee today from Caribou. It’s a great deal at only $1 provided that the Minnesota Twins baseball team wins the previous day. The only real catch is that you have to remember to print out the coupon from the internet or you’re out of luck. At this point, it’s pretty much a habit for me and really hasn’t been much of an issue. Heck, I’m practically there every day so it’s routine by now.

Caribou locations usually have a trivia question posted on the wall and, if you guess the answer correctly, you receive an extra 10 cents off your purchase. This may seems trivial (pardon the pun) but when you’re coffee is only $1 to begin with it’s actually quite nice. If you get a really nice Caribou employee to ring you up, sometimes they’ll even give you the discount if you answer incorrectly and/or they’ll give you a second/third/fourth chance at the answer.

I placed my order and looked at the question. “Who is the month of July named for?” was proudly displayed on the trivia board. Who was the month of July named for?! Um... It seemed like the sort of thing that maybe I should know but I had no idea that any of the months were named after anyone. In fact, upon thinking about it, I had often wondered where these goofy names had come from in the first place.

Ashley rang me up at the register and, upon noticing that I was looking at the board, kindly asked, “Would you like to take a stab at today’s trivia question?” I hesitated uncomfortably. “Um, yeah, sure...” I said without much confidence. “Hmm, let’s see… Who is the month of July named for… Um…” I was stalling for time as much as possible as Ashley patiently watched me with little amusement.

I had completely drawn a blank. July? Who the heck is named ‘July’? Even worse, who the heck is named any part of the word ‘July’? Nothing was coming to me. Meanwhile, Ashley was starting to get annoyed. I had to come up with an answer and fast. Anything would do and they often say that your first thought is correct. Jul…Jul…

I settled on an answer in my head and promptly blurted it out. “Jules Verne?” No sooner did I say it but both Ashley and I laughed out loud. Smiling slightly, Ashley finished ringing me up, albeit without the 10 cent discount, while stating, “The correct answer is Julius Caesar.”

Ah! Julius Caesar! Now that makes sense! Jules Verne?! What the heck was I thinking?!!

I never was very good at history.