And On the Thirteenth Day...

Rest. Finally, my two-week-long neon adventure has come to an end.

These past 12 days have worn me out. I basically slept all day on Monday, then dragged my carcass back to the casino for another eight hours behind the green felt.

I saw that Let It Ride was one of my assigned tables for the evening, but I was hoping the poker room would call and rescue me like they did last Monday night. But a quick fly-by of the poker room showed me that they only had two tables going when I got to work. That wasn't a good sign.

After twelve straight days of work, and seeing that the poker room was dead now that the bad beat jackpot had hit, I was hoping to sign up for an anytime ASAP Early Out. I made enough last night to justify it. But no, when I went to sign in and such, and there was no early out sign up sheet.

Damn!

So I shuffled off to my first table, Crazy 4 Poker, and got to enjoy about three minutes of peace and quiet, staring off into space, before the first person decided to come up and tell me how awful it must be to have to sit there and do nothing.

Yeah, you have no idea...

So as soon as I started making change and shuffling up the cards, a couple of other people showed up, and it was Game On once again. I switched over to autopilot and tried not to make too many mistakes. You've heard of sleepwalking? Well, I was sleepdealing. I think that if I would've gotten paid a dollar for every time I yawned in the past three days, I could already be retired and living like Hef with a bevy of half-naked cocktail waitresses at my beck and call.

And speaking of waitresses, of course Kimmy was in my section and gave me my standard greeting when I first saw her, which earned her a wink. But she took an early break and then Michelle came by and said hello, so while I was dealing the cards I gave her a wink and one of those silent 'air kisses' that we sometimes do from a distance. Then about ten minutes later, another one of the gals walked by and waved on her way to the sports book, so I gave her the head-bob and wink acknowledgment. And right after she got out of sight, Beth walked by and said Hey Mikey, Happy Friday!

One of the guys sitting on the end of the table had witnessed all of this and finally spoke up.

Dude, how did you get so popular with all the hot women in this place?

I responded with Well, I learned it on the Discovery Channel. If you can somehow work your way into the herd, it's much easier to eventually pick one off...

That got a laugh, which I needed to keep from falling over face first in my rack. Seriously, I was feeling pretty burnt out.

Eventually, Cheryl, the assistant shift manager came by to talk to me about reconciling all of my time sheets between the two departments, and I told her that she could put me down for an ASAP early out. She said she'd do what she could--maybe close a bar game early and send me home.

But my rotation ended, and I went on break. As soon as I got back to the dining room, who did I see sitting there eating dinner but the Greg, the poker room manager. The first thing he said to me was Hey, did you get your transfer paperwork done yet?

I reminded him that I couldn't because the employment office has been closed since Thursday and doesn't open again until Tuesday at 8:00 am because of the holiday weekend.

He then told me to make sure and come in and do it first thing in the morning because he *has* to hire somebody within the next two days and I'm at the top of his list. He also told me that he got no complaints at all about me from any of the regular players, and I even got a few good comments. Apparently, whenever a new dealer comes in, he gets a few days worth of complaints before they get all the kinks worked out, so he said he's really enjoyed having me work there this past week.

Basically, I got everything but the official job offer right there in the break room while I was sippin' my iced tea.

So I was in as good a mood as I possibly could've been in, knowing that my next table was the dreaded Let It Ride. Again, it was dead when I got there, but within five minutes of sitting down, another full table. Good lord, only the hot Asian dealers with the fake boobs can fire up a dead table faster than me. I don't know what it is, but there could be six dead games in Chinatown, and the first person to walk up and play will choose my table EVERY time... And nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd, so as soon as one lemming sits down, the rest follow.

Suprisingly, it was a good table, and I dropped way more tokes than you'd ever expect, especially for a game that grinds people up as bad as Let It Ride does. But don't get me wrong, nobody was happier than me to finally go on break an hour later.

I thought I was going home then, because I saw the bar games were closed, but nobody said anything, so back to the break room I went. I sat in the 'quiet room' with my head back and feet up, and actually dozed off for a minute or two before somebody said something to wake me up.

Once I got back to the pit, one of the other bosses told me that I was going home, but to go see Cheryl first. I had to go over all my time for the week, and apparently, she'd already talked to the poker room manager and is anticipating losing me for good almost immediately. At some point this week I need to talk to the casino director to get my official 'release' from the pit, and also find out how they're going to handle my status--if I'm going to remain full time or go back to Extra Board, if I lose my benefits, how my vacation time is going to get paid, etc. I'm full-on prepared for the worst case scenario, so any consideration they give me will be a nice unexpected bonus.

But even so, making the jump from the poker room, is worth whatever I lose. The money is so much better, and I enjoy the work much more. And as laid-back as it is in our pit, it's even more casual in the poker room. It is *not* a stressful job.

Once I got all done with my business in the pit, I headed over to the poker room to say goodnight and just check in to see if they anticipated needing me again on Tuesday night. But they said that they plan on being pretty dead until Friday night, so I could relax and enjoy my weekend.

Oh hell yeah. Talk about sweet music to my ears.

So my plan for the day is to get some sleep, go to the bank and deposit all my cash, pay some bills, then head down to work again and make my transfer official. After that, I'm gonna come home, enjoy a martini or two, and cook a huge pot of homemade spaghetti sauce. Once dinner time rolls around, I'll cook up some pasta and bake a loaf of garlic bread, crack open a bottle of red wine, and make a silent toast to all the good fortune I've had as of late.

And I think I'll take the night off from the poker tournament at Silverton. As relaxing and enjoyable it is to play poker, a night or two away from the casino environment is probably just what I need.

Besides, if I polish off an entire bottle of red wine, who knows what kind of interesting stuff I'll be inspired to write.

Mikey