Out-of-date sausages brought a young Swords, Co Dublin, couple a £5.2 million lottery jackpot.
Looking dazed, Declan and Linda Fleming yesterday revealed how they came to buy the winning ticket for the third-biggest jackpot.
At an interest rate of 5 per cent, the couple would earn £5,000 a week, before tax, in interest alone on their capital sum.
"Declan makes the breakfast on Saturday mornings, and the sausages were out of date, so I sent him round to the shop to buy some, and he did a Quick Pick," said Mrs Fleming, adding, ". . .and he burnt the sausages!"
Sipping what she said jokingly was her seventh glass of champagne, she said they didn't believe it when they saw the numbers come up on the television on Saturday.
"I didn't believe it at all, I thought it was some joke that Declan had played, rigging up the computer to the TV, or something," said Mrs Fleming. "I just went into hysterics laughing."
Mrs Fleming said she went into work yesterday morning, and only when she actually saw the cheque in the National Lottery's offices in Middle Abbey Street did it begin to "hit home that this was real". Both appeared calm as they spoke about their wealth.
There was no mention of Ferraris, Porsches, Versace dresses or big foreign trips so, then, what are they going to do with the money?
"Look after our families," said Mrs Fleming. "We were saying on Saturday, what would it mean to us if it was true? And I said, well, our families are looked after."
She said she and her husband already had their own home and their own cars and were secure, but this meant their families would now "have somewhere to turn the key and call their own".
"All the people around us are going to benefit from this," Mr Fleming said.
The couple said they decided to go public because they felt it would come out eventually and "we wanted all our family to enjoy it with us".
Mr Fleming (37) is a partner in a printing press sales company and Mrs Fleming (Bannon) (33) is a retail account manager with Compaq Computers, where she has worked for the past 12 years.
The couple, who have no children, are looking forward to celebrating their 12th anniversary next month.
They insisted they wouldn't be giving up their day jobs, though Mrs Fleming did say she'd be taking this morning off.