Back To Reality

Oh man, this morning I'm feeling a lot like I did back in the old days when I'd get back to Phoenix after a 3-day bender in Vegas. I want nothing but water, sleep, and silence.

It turns out that the last two days of buffoonery with CoolP were much more taxing on my system than I thought, and, I still didn't get hardly any sleep after the fact, either. Once I got home yesterday morning, I did my write-up, surfed the net, etc., and all the coffee I'd had made me pretty wired, so I while I may have been exhausted, I wasn't sleepy. So instead of going to bed, I futzed around the house all morning, and finally committed to meeting my old buddy Lars for lunch at Grimaldi's. I was beginning to worry about him--he was sounding like a lost puppy this week when I kept delaying, but he had a good reason. He starts a new job next week that requires him to work in an office--no more telecommuting and sitting at home in his pajamas all day. So our weekly ritual of pizza at Patsy G's may be coming to an end--at least as far as weekdays are concerned.

But instead of going to bed, I stayed up long enough so that we could meet up at 11:30, figuring that afterwards I'd come home, crash for a few hours, and head into the casino somewhat ready to face the work week.

So I left the house at 11:00, stopped at the bank to redeposit the money I'd taken out of the ATM this week, and then filled up my gas tank ($3.17 per gallon, $52 to take it from less than a quarter tank all the way up to the cap). I rolled in to Grimaldi's one minute late, and Lars was already there. We wasted no time in placing an order for our new usual--2 large pies, one with pepperoni and mushroom, the other with Italian sausage and Kalamata olives.

And of course we didn't have to wait long before we found ourselves face-deep in ultimate pizza goodness.

I was giving Lars the details of the Craftsteak tasting menu just as I took my first bite of the pepperoni pizza, and paused to savor the first mouthful. And Lars, ever observant, said Dude, you've got to have the happiest tummy in the 702 this week!

He was absolutely right--I've had some great meals this week, and of course lunch at Grimaldi's is always a favorite.

Our tab was $46, as usual, and for about $28 bucks apiece, we both get two meals out of it, so it's not a bad deal. We've both learned to stop gorging ourselves and trying to kill an entire pizza each in one sitting (although it's oh so tempting!), and that it's much better to have some leftovers for the next day.

Hell, who am I kidding? Next day my ass--the leftovers only make it a few hours until dinner time, that's it.

But once we finished up and headed our separate ways, I immediately went to bed, knowing that I had less than five hours to sleep before going back to work. Of course, it seemed like the time passed in an instant, and that alarm clock going off might as well have been a funeral dirge because of the way I was feeling.

I dragged my ass to the shower, got dressed, and autopiloted myself to the casino.

Oh yeah, it was my lucky night. I'd forgotten that this was a 'busy' weekend, and nobody could take vacation. We have our usual group of twice-a-year golfers in town filling up the hotel and casino, so every available table was open, plus there was a blackjack tournament scheduled. Well, the golfers in this group aren't exactly huge partiers, and while most of them arrived yesterday, hardly any of them were down in the casino gambling last night. And the blackjack tournament didn't even last an hour.

In other words, we were dead. The entire casino was just empty, magnified by the fact that all those extra tables were open and empty.

I was scheduled on three $5 shoe games--no Pai Gow for me last night. My first game was in the small pit on the far side of the dice tables, and for that entire first hour, I didn't have one single player sit down and play a hand. Those cards sat in the shoe in the exactly the way I put them in after their initial wash. No action at all. My other two tables were up in the bar, which is generally cool, and I actually had some players there.

The most memorable, however, was this complete and total dipshiat and his girlfriend. The girlfriend was cool, but this guy was the epitome of loserdom. He was about 5'4" tall, weighed maybe a buck twenty, and was covered head-to-toe, face included, with piercings and tattoos. And he had a really bad case of Short Man's Disease. Plus he was about the worst blackjack player in captivity.

He didn't follow basic strategy for shiat, yet had to give running commentary the entire time about why and how he was playing his cards, and insisted on telling his girlfriend how she should play hers. Of course I laid down a well-deserved beating on him, and he went broke, yet the whole time he was telling me how he was playing $100 per hand the night before (yet sweating his $5 bets last night). His girlfriend was holding her own, and when the dude got a phone call, I did what I could to teach the girl basic strategy and why her boy lost all his money. Well, he was on the phone for a good twenty minutes, away from the table, and without him pressuring her to play like a jackass, she started doing pretty well and turned her last ten bucks into almost $200.

When he came back, he started right back up in telling her how to play, wrongly, and I'd just say, Remember what I told you? and she'd do the opposite of what he said, and usually win. Well, this didn't sit well with him, and he damn near lost his mind.

Bitch--you don't listen to him, you're my woman. You listen to me! and so forth...

It was tough to keep from rolling my eyes and chuckling at this douchebag, but I just dummied up and dealt, watching this chick give back all of her winnings over the next ten minutes or so. Luckily, I got tapped off the table shortly after that.

When I got back from break 20 minutes later, they had moved to my new table. He started off by being a jackass, and I won the first three or four bets from him. There was another player at first base, who I could tell was already getting tired of the guy, so we both shared a few knowing glances whenever the moron said anything spectacularly stupid, which was quite often.

On one hand, I actually busted, and ended up paying the table. While making the payouts, this tattooed freak said You're lucky you busted, otherwise I would've had to meet you outside later and teach you a lesson.

I was like, WTF? Is this jackass serious?

So I said, only half-jokingly, Oh really? You wanna dance, little man?

Bring it!

This made the other players at the table crack up laughing. Of course, he was broke and gone about five minutes later, and I could just tell by the look in his girlfriend's eyes as they walked away that she finally realized that she was dating a loser. The table had a much more fun vibe after that.

I got an early push after just forty minutes, and realized that it wasn't even 11:00 pm yet and we had way too many dealers around, even closing games didn't help. And my original game in the small pit was still open, four hours later, and still hadn't had one player stop by and make a bet. Not one.

I went down to the main pit to see what the deal was with my tables, and saw that a bunch of other dealers were doing twenty-on, twenty-off rotations, and that we were very unlikely to make any money that night. So I told Kenny to launch me on Early Out as soon as it was available--I still kinda felt like shiat and although I was awake, my system was still paying for the weekend's activities.

His two-word response? Good night!

Of course, who did I run into in the men's room on my way back to my locker? Oh yeah, you guessed it, the loser with the tattoos. But he didn't say a word or even acknowledge my presence. Apparently, I'd already learned my lesson and he didn't need to beat my ass. Whew! I dodged a bullet there!

Anyhow, I headed for home, but stopped at the grocery store first to get a few essentials like milk, juice, coffee, Coke, and some Texas Toast bread. Yeah, I'm in the mood for French Toast. When I got home, the front door was unlocked and I walked in on Rob and his woman putting the love in loveseat.

I awkwardly put my groceries away, filled up a large glass with ice, grabbed a bottle of rum and and bottle of Coke, and scurried off to my bedroom for the balance of the night. But I didn't last a half hour before I was face down and drooling into my pillow, my cocktail a watery mess under the lamp on my nightstand. I slept for four straight hours, waking up only because my feet were cold and I had to pee.

The living area was all clear, so I fetched another glass of ice, came back here to my room, and the rest, they say, is history. I've got nothing on the agenda today but a walk down to the mailbox and a load of laundry. Maybe by the time I go to work tonight, all the ill effects of my buffoonery will have passed.

Oh, and I also talked to CoolP just before getting home last night--He finally got that elusive Royal Flush for $2000, basically covering the costs of our first night's debauch. With that royal, our three four-of-a-kinds, and our monster run at the GVR Pai Gow tables, all the bad gambling ju-ju of the past week was erased for both of us.

Now I've just got to find my poker game before the circus comes to town...

Wait-- Is this a dagger I see before me?

No... it's much better than that--it's a box of leftover Grimaldi's! The French toast can wait.

Mikey