My Feet Hurt

Here it is on a very breezy Sunday morning in Vegas-land, and I'm lying in bed, curling my toes over and over again, trying to avoid the old bottom-of-the-foot charlie-horse.

Here's the scoop. I have three pairs of shoes I wear to work, but honestly I only use two of them. The black Reeboks just don't look right--tennis shoes with slacks looks even more ghetto when combined with all of that polyester I have to wear. Anyhow, I have one set of slip-on loafers which are the most comfortable, and one set of black man-clogs, which are pretty comfy, but don't seem to be quite wide enough, so after about four or five hours on my feet, they start to hurt.

But after last night, I figured I'd be back on my 'home' string of tables tonight--two Pai Gow tables and Deuces wild. So I wore the clogs, thinking I'd be sitting on my ass all night. But it was not to be. As soon as I got to work, I found out that I'd be in the 'retard' pit, dealing $5 blackjack all night to the most annoying of the drunks. It was awful. I hate dealing low-limit blackjack worse than just about anything. (Well, a quarter craps game is about as bad as it gets, but luckily we haven't had that shiat in almost two years).

So not having any sit down games, my feet were bothering me by 11:00 pm. And I was dealing to a couple of guys who were easily the stupidest and most annoying people I've dealt to in months. Seriously, who the f*ck stands on an Ace/three against anything? And then to split tens, stand on 15's, and then complain that they can't make a hand? I was surrounded by morons pretty much all night long.

And do you know what the worst thing about wearing a name tag is? The idiots who insist on using your name about six times a minute for the entire hour you're at the table.

Mikey, be nice to me.

Mikey, give me some good cards.

Mikey, let me win a hand.

I thought you were going to bust, Mikey.

Mikey, can you call a cocktail waitress over here?

You're not being very nice, Mikey.

Mikey, what should I do with my soft 17, Mikey?

You should shut the f*ck up and make a decision on your own, jerkwad. (That's what I was saying on the inside...)

I actually told this one asshat that if every time he used my name from that point on, it was going to cost him a dollar. He started doing it again, and was just drunk enough that when I said, Dude, give me three bucks--he did, and I dropped it in the toke box.

I told you it was going to cost you.

Everyone else at the table started laughing at him, but it curtailed the annoyance factor quite a bit after that.

It finally started slowing down around 1:00 am or so, and one of my tables got closed. Being the teacher's pet, instead of having to go back and work on that crappy string again, I got to spend a little time mucking chips at the roulette wheel, and then spend about a half hour or so gathering tokes. Without even hitting the main pit, we filled up two treasure boxes, something I've never seen happen before in the three years I've been working there. Hopefully there was more green than white, and we'll have a big night. (Oh, and by the way, it turns out that last night's little adventure in stupidity cost me $308. Damn.)

The biggest bummer of the night was that not only was I not in Chinatown, which just happens to be the section of the pit covered by my favorite cocktail waitress, but the fact that she called out sick last night, too, so I didn't get to see her at all. I mean, geez, I only get to stare at her for three nights a week, the least she could do was gut it up and make it to work, right? Oh well, I guess it just wasn't my night.

In addition to all that, around 7:30 or so, my cellphone just started going nuts. I got back to the dining room on my break and saw that I had six missed calls and four voicemails, all from different members of my family. Of course, after this week, I just assumed the worst.

But all the voice mails turned out to be nothing but drunk-dialing from my siblings. Apparently, everyone is still in Nashville, and all four of my sisters and my brother Reverend Dave decided to go out together and just get absolutely shiat-faced last night. And they kept calling, over and over again all night long. I finally had to turn my phone off, and when I got off of work, I had six more voice mails. Oh yeah, they were in rare form last night, and apparently, wished I was there with them. Woulda been fun, that's for sure...

But instead of getting silly with those I love the most, well, I spent my evening doing something much less enjoyable. But it's not as bad as I'm making it sound--it's still a pretty easy gig, and right now the money ain't too bad, either. And I'm in Vegas for cryin' out loud! Believe me when I tell you that working in Vegas beats drinking in Nashville 99 times out of a hundred.

And tonight, I'm back on my home string of tables, and maybe my favorite gal will be there serving drinks and letting me flirt a little, while I spend eight hours or so hustling tokes and telling jokes.

I can think of worse ways to spend a Sunday night.

Mikey