Kentucky's Gonna Kill Me

Although given what I've written about the other states they're probably not all that upset that I'm stalled on there chapter. Assuming anyone in Kentucky actually has a computer.

As you know, thanks to my publicist and blogging conscience Tysgirl, yesterday was my birthday. I am now 39. Woo-hoo.

I spent the morning knocking off a couple of depositions, then went to the casino for some poker. I play $1-$2 no-limit Hold 'Em, which is a lot of fun to play and incredibly boring to listen to stories about, so I'll spare you any exciting tales of what I did in each situation based on the cards in my hand, on the table, and my own incredible powers of observation. All we need to say about that is that I was there for 4+ hours and lost about $60. I also found out you can get a 15 minute back rub from a professional masseuse for $20, which means I probably should have spent that $60 for 45 minutes of a back massage. Live and learn.

But the most interesting thing was watching the big guy named Brian who was sitting acrss from me the whole time. When I arrived the waiting list for a seat at a $1-$2 table was ten deep, so they opened a new table for the 10 of us. made me feel special. So I saw Brian in action from the time I sat down until the time I left. He told us early on that he'd been up for 30+ hours, had played in a tournament earlier in the week and was now playing cash games to kill time until his bus left, at about 8 pm, at which time he would hopefully pass out for the entire ride home.

Now here's the thing. If you're playing cards, they have waitresses that come around to the table about every 20 minutes, and they'll take your drink order and bring you the drink. AND IT'S FREE!!!! Whatever you order, it's free. You usually tip a buck to make sure she keeps coming back, but otherwise, whatever you want to drink, you can get for $1. I get water or juice, since my drunken card-playing would have us in the poor house in no time. I was sort of pissed off to discover, just as I was leaving, that you can get chocolate milkshakes too. I never even thought of that. I love chocolate milkshakes!! For $1 each I'dve probably put myself in a diabetic coma within two hours.

Brian, however, isn't as much a fan of water or milkshakes as he is off booze. During the 4+ hours I was there he must have had 8-10 shots of various forms of booze. Jack Daniels, Crown Royal, Southern Comfort, sterno, whatever he could think of, he'd order. And they'd bring it to him. The only rule they have is that you can only get one at a time. Which is pretty easy to deal with when you're going to see the waitress every twenty minutes. I've sat at bars and had less frequent service.

As the afternoon wore on, Brian got louder. Hard to believe, I know, but not in an obnoxious way. He kept daring people to bet more money, kept throwing more money into the pot to build things up, and by the time I left to go meet my wife for dinner, (she paid; I had a "game dinner" of venison, pheasant and sausage, as well as an oyster stew. I don't need to eat for another three days.), had lost about $500. And he seemed perfectly OK with it.

The moral of the story is if you're going to skip work and play cards, try to sit at the table with the happy alcoholic with the gambling problem. Hopefully he got home OK, but I suspect he's still snoozing in the back of the bus, now parked at the terminal.