When I made yesterday's post, I thought that I'd come to the end of the holiday gift trail. But no--there was more in store! Skip, aka SoreEyes, showed up last night at my table, and he didn't show up empty-handed. He came bearing a nicely wrapped present for me--a hand-picked sampler box of some premium cigars. I mean, he brought the good stuff--special occasion cigars that reside in a place of honor in the humidor. We're talking about cream-of-the-crop aged tobacco that is hand-rolled on the thighs of Caribbean virgins, and can only be fully appreciated by a true connoisseur.
Thank you again, Skip--I can't wait to light them up.
Unfortunately, I couldn't reciprocate, and proceeded to beat him down to the tune of a hundred bucks in just under ten minutes, giving him a taste of Doc Al's pain. As much as I wanted him to win--since he was setting a good example to the stiffs at the table--we just couldn't get the cards to fall the first time around. Luckily he came back later and made a couple bucks back, but it was truly a rocky start.
The rest of the night was fun--when I wasn't spending time dealing on the Ked's table ($5 shoe), I was dealing Rapid Roulette. It seems like that combination is my usual Sunday night assignment--it's where I've been the past three Sundays. It's not bad--dealing rapid roulette is very relaxing and there are two dealers shooting the shiat and no floorpeople around. The only downer is the fact that we're right outside of Club Madrid, where the Sunday Night Karaoke takes place. So the first three hours of the shift we were subjected to something not unlike the sound of cats being tortured.
After about midnite or so, the Rapid Roulette game goes completely dead, so it's usually just the two of us just standing around discussing whatever topic comes up--it certainly beats standing at a dead blackjack table staring at an empty restaurant late at night with nobody to talk to. But last night was especially enjoyable--I was talking with another dealer I usually don't work with very often, but because of some of my readers, he's familiar with my body of work. He's also an aspiring writer, so we had a great discussion of our 'craft'. At some point, I was telling him a few things I've learned over the years and spat out a particularly lucid observation which we both thought was especially pithy:
Most people write in black and white. I try to write in color.
I guess that about sums it up. If only I could remember it every time I sit down at the keyboard... Anyhow, it was a great discussion, and I felt invigorated and motivated after all was said and done. Hopefully it will be reflected, at least a little bit, in the stuff I post.
Being that it was a Sunday night, we were dead slow after 2am. I hadn't left early all week, so I decided to treat myself to two hours of Early Out and get some sleep. I think I spent my last 20 minutes standing on a regular roulette table mucking chips because they'd closed so many other tables and we had too many dealers, so the decision to leave early was an easy one.
I got plenty of sleep, but woke up today with a to-do list a mile long:
1) Dust, polish, and refresh the humidor
2) Hang up all my clean shirts, on hangars, instead of the closet door
3) Clean and dust my desk, file all the crap that I've been stacking up
4) Dust the TV
5) Call MetLife about cashing that stray $200 that's been floating around for the last three years in a dead account
6) Bust out the Lysol handi-wipes and clean all the fixtures in my bathroom
7) Sort out the basket of socks and pair up everything in the sock drawer
8) Rip all of my Jimmy Buffett cds and convert them to mp3 files
9) Wash and put away the new set of silverware that's still in the box
10) Make the bed
I'm about halfway through it, but the chances of total completion aren't looking very good. Sticky's home from shopping, so that's pretty much it for my afternoon.
Mikey
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