Grubby at PokerWorks

Did I actually just turn down a game of strip poker with four drunk girls?
A friend called at 2:15 a.m. and said he was with four girls who were up for playing if he could get two guys to join. He said, “Free girls. You’ll be paying in Vegas.”

One girl got on the phone and called me chicken shit. Another kept saying, “34C. 34C.”

I had no way to get to Bucktown except by cab. I had to do laundry. I was in the middle of four SnGs. I had to get up early to not miss my flight. I had just masturbated.

I was tongue-tied at the anonymous girl trying to get me to go.

But I mustered out a no anyway, got called chicken shit again, and then proceeded to lose the SnGs.

At least I’m up early enough for my flight, that I can continue writing about the last trip, which serves to remind me not to play as much this trip.

***

Friday in Vegas was intended to be a nonslot day. grubette and Doug were arriving later, and I had some time to kill and wanted to see how long I could go without gambling.

Visited our Las Vegas office near the airport, where for a few hours I caught up on some cool games being worked on and future projects. I like that I can just drop by and peek in on things and be treated warmly. A coworker gave me a Diet Coke and said that even here I got free drinks. A couple of the same coworkers would later be in Chicago the next week, as part of that drunken Thursday night a few posts ago.

Then headed to my old Henderson ‘hood, eating the cheap daily special at Village Pub, owned by the same folks that run the Ellis Island Casino and their cheap but good restaurant inside. The server began explaining what the special was, when I stopped her and said, “You had me at corn on the cob.” With the cob came a BBQ half-chicken, bowl of chili, and French fries.

Near Green Valley Ranch is a public library that has Internet access for a 90-minute session per day. I never visited while living there, so I never got a library card. They’ll issue out-of-towners a temporary pass, but fortunately I still have my Nevada driver’s license, giving me a library card and played around on the Internet.

Next to me was a girl who was helping an older woman print a document. They soon began chatting, and the older woman had just seen Don Rickles, who just played and was headed to Atlantic City. I’ve never seen Rickles in person, and he’s next in Vegas in early October. I’m tempted to fly in for the weekend just to see him perform at the Golden Nugget.

The girl travels the country doing theatrical lighting for plays and she had just returned from Chicago, where her boyfriend lives. She started confessing to the older woman that she wasn’t sure he was The One because he wasn’t a best friend. The older woman sympathized, bringing up stories about her late husband. I scrolled through some random Internet sites while eavesdropping before they turned attention to me.  They said they should stop talking because it looked like I was trying to get some work done.

Years ago, the first assignment I had in my first playwriting class was to eavesdrop on a conversation. That ended up being a heated, heartbreaking one-sided phone conversation a coworker was having with her mother who had Alzheimer’s, and I remember being in the office transcribing it word-for-word in Microsoft Word.

With writing hat on, I feel I have creative license to eavesdrop, but when not writing, I’m just a snoop.

So I stopped eavesdropping and joined their conversation, eventually exchanging numbers after I exaggerated my playwriting production portfolio a bit, saying my plays have mostly been seen on the East Coast, which is true, but I haven’t had any shows staged in almost three years.

I had time to catch the last matinee of Ocean’s Thirteen, and I thought about asking the girl along, but after being present for the whole boyfriend conversation, it would’ve been inappropriate, so I decided to go solo.

I’d wanted to see the movie, and what better place to see a Vegas movie than in Vegas? Even better, I had enough points on my Station Casino Boarding Pass card to pay for the flick.

The place was packed, and it was enjoyable watching the crew improbably rig the casino games — including slot machines. Brad Pitt used a pattern he memorized to get an Aristocrat game to pay off $31 million to a woman, where gold doors opened at the top and physical gold coins began spilling onto her.

After the movie, I still had time before grubette’s flight, so I ended up at Monopoly Big Event (a 2-cent version), dumping $500 in a short time before finally prying my cold slot button fingers away from the machine.  It’s a great game when it pays, but when it hasn’t hit in awhile it can be a killer.

After picking up grubette and Doug, then checking into Rio, we played slots and I made back $200 on Hot Hot Penny (King of Africa and Blue Lagoon) and another $200 on Hot Hot Super Jackpot after a woman offered me a lucky cough drop.

Need to cut this reminiscing short and hop in the shower, pick up laundry, and pack. The goal tonight is minimal slot play (for girly drinks), Starbucks fraps for everyone in line, 30 minutes on the hotel’s treadmill, the Sahara tourney at 7 or 11, some writing, and a good night’s sleep.

But I’ll leave you with a buy 1, get 1 free Jamba Juice smoothie, good through July 4.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 30th, 2007 at 10:46 am and is filed under Uncategorized.