Thursday, September 29, 2005

I got the fever baby!!!!

I got the "fever" when I was in Las Vegas.

It was the morning of our last day there. I leave my wife in our suite with her room service breakfast and I go to the casino to get my money back before we leave.

I got the "fever" playing the "Wheel of Fortune" dollar slots. I think they pump inaudible hypnotic suggestions over the casino floor that say "feed me, feed me, feed me over and over again. That way you either go to the buffet or throw another hundred-dollar bill into a dollar slot machine.

I couldn't leave this one Wheel of Fortune machine because...I was "due."

I found myself talking out loud using gambling terms I had never used before.

I'd hit that "max bet" button and yell, "Baby needs new shoes." "Poppa needs to pay the rent." "My wife's been at the "Forum" shops."

No matter how much cigarette smoke wafted over me from the octogenarian who was plugged in to the slot machine on my right I wasn't leaving my machine.

She started getting a little perturbed with me when I kept yelling, "Grandma needs the patch!"

I think she gave me the finger.

It was a little bent and crooked but it definitely resembled the finger.

It was at this moment when a couple stumbled up to the machine on my left. They looked like poster children for Wal-Mart.

He had a tee shirt with a black motorcycle vest over it, blue jeans, long hair, a moustache and a goatee. She had the hair, moustache and goatee and jeans but no tee shirt, just the black vest.
They both had cigarettes hanging out of their mouths.

It's 8:30 in the morning and they're both drunk.

Viva Las Vegas.

He was slurring over and over again that he needed to "F^@(*&G EAT!!!!" and wanders off. She somehow manages to stick a twenty into the slot machine.

Typical of my luck her machine lets out a "WHEEL....OF....FORTUNE!!!" on her very first pull. She leans back to look up at the wheel spinning around and just as the wheel stops on one hundred dollars she passes out with her head tilted back and her mouth wide open.

With a cigarette hanging from her mouth.

It was just hanging there. Kind of stuck on her lip.

I was tempted to use her mouth as an ashtray but I'm sure the elderly tobacco queen on my right would rat me out.

It was at this moment that I noticed the tattoo on her left breast. I wasn't intentionally looking at her left breast but it was sticking out of that black vest taking a look around and somehow I spotted it.

On her left breast was a tattoo of Bart Simpson.

Which is rare....

Flipping the bird.

Also rare....

Pointed at me.

Um.... Not so rare.

I've now been given the finger by the breast of passed out trailer trash on my left and "old mother lung cancer" on my right.

Yes, bring the kids; Las Vegas is fun for the whole family.

And then "it" happened.

I hit the.....

"WHEEL OF FORTUNE!!!"

THAT WHEEL STARTED SPINNING!!!

ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS BABY!!!!!!

WOOOOOHOOOOO!!!!

I TOLD YOU I WAS DUE!!!!

I cash out the machine and grab my ticket.

"Smoke this grandma!!! Hey lady tuck that in, you'll poke someone's eye out with that thing."
I'm a winner.

I'm going to show my wife what a winner I am.

I go back up to our room and act sly.

"Let's go babe. I didn't do very well. I only won....ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS!!!!"

"Really let me see."

She takes the ticket from me.

"That's great honey."

She puts the ticket in her purse.

"Umm... Can I have my ticket back?"

"Nope."

"That's my ticket."

"Yep."

"I want it back."

"Nope."

"I won that money I need my ticket."

"Why?"

"So I can cash it out and have one thousand twenty seven dollars in my pocket."

"What are you going to do with one thousand twenty seven dollars two hours before we leave Las Vegas?"

"Umm.... Buy you a present."

"Really. Would that present be somewhere in the casino?"

"Umm..."

"You know that you'll just go right back to the casino and lose it all."

"I'm on a roll, a lucky streak, I'm hot right now, on fire even. I need my one thousand twenty seven dollars."

"You can have the twenty seven."

"But..."

"When we get to the airport."

"That's not fair."

"Or I can keep the twenty seven..."

"FINE!!! You know I'm a grown man. I can handle myself down there. I'm a mature adult."

"Yes you are honey."

The Las Vegas airport has learned crowd management from Disneyland. The bag check lines are nuts.

"You didn't pack any weapons this time did you? No knives, forks, sharp objects of any kind?"

"Do you want that twenty seven dollars?"

"Yes."

"Then behave."

When we get to our gate my wife gives me my twenty-seven dollars and I go over to the quarter "Wheel of Fortune" slots.

Who is sitting there?

The old nicotine broad from the casino.

I pretend I don't recognize her and stick a twenty into the machine.

"WHEEL OF FORTUNE!!!!"

NO WAY!!!

ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS!!!!

AHA!!!

I was on a lucky streak!!!

I cash out and wave my ticket at grandma again.

My wife isn't going to believe this.

"Hey babe guess what?"

"Did you win?"

"Did I win??? Did I win??? Um...No...nope.... nada...zip."

"Why are you so excited then?"

"Uh...Oh I just saw an old friend."

"What old friend?"

"Someone I met at the casino. Elderly woman, very nice lady, she pointed the way to the restrooms for me."

"Right."

"Hey what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas."



(Quick note)

I skipped a post about Las Vegas. I wrote about the fights and the fight fans we saw in Las Vegas but decided that I just couldn't post it. One of the fights we saw was Jesus Chavez versus Leavander Johnson. Johnson ended up with a subdural hematoma, slipped into a coma and passed away five days after the fight. I didn't know Johnson had been hurt until we got back from Las Vegas. I couldn't make fun of what I saw after learning about that.

Boxing is, by its very nature, an inherently dangerous sport. I don't know whether or not Johnson's trainers could have spotted any signs that he was in any trouble physically before the fight ended. It's just very sad.