Wednesday, Jun. 14, 2006
7,8,9 Forever
Up until this past Sunday, I had almost forgotten how much fun a little bit of randomness could be. That afternoon when Adam and I woke up, little did I know that four hours later I would be in Atlantic City.
"What do you wanna do today?" Adam asked me as we both lazily layed in bed.
"I dunno," I replied as I yawned and stretched me arms into the air, trying to motivate myself to get out of bed and dressed.
He smiled an almost evil grin and said nonchalantly,"I feel like going to Atlantic City."
I immediatly protested, vetoing the possible situation entirely primarily due to lack of money and time (it was already two o'clock in the afternoon). Even though we are getting caught up on bills, unfortunatly, there are some that we have yet to pay. Trying to be responsible, I explained my reasoning for not wanting to go.
"We've gotta pay the gas bill this week...how much money do you have on you anyway?" I asked.
"I have about two hundred bucks not including the money I'm saving to pay our rent with."
Big fuckin' whoop. I knew better than to say it out loud, because he would just get pissed off, but I was thinking to myself,"Two hundred dollars will not get us very far in AC."
On the contrary though, if he only had two hundred, he couldn't lose any more than that. There was no way I was going to let him gamble with the eighty dollars I had in my pocket either. I weighed out the good and bad possibilities and came up with the conclusion that it wouldn't hurt to make the trip.
We were on the road nto even twenty minutes later. The drive there wasn't too bad. Traffic wasn't heavy beacuse it was a Sunday afternoon. We made decent time and got into AC without any complications.
A friend of Adam and I's suggested that we go to Caesar's Palace. Since neither Adam or I had ever been to AC, we decided to take his advice.
As soon as we got off the elevator, it sounded like I was in an arcade because of all the slot machines. We took all of that in as we got our comp cards. Adam was slowly making his way downstairs to where all the gambling was taking place where as I, on the other hand was getting annoyed that he was moving like a geriatric. I wanted to break into a sprint or jog but refrained myself from doing so.
I felt like a little kid lost in the biggest candy shop in the world because I didn't even know where to start. Honestly, it was a little overwhelming. We walked around and watched a few of the tables at first, just seeing what kind of gambling everyone was into. Personally, I liked watched the craps table because it was the most exciting.
Finally, Adam sat down at a three card poker table while I stood beside him and watched. After he played a few hands, I understood enough to give it a try myself. I was nervous at first because I had never been to a casino before. It was sort of like being devirginized though. Even though you've never done it before, once you get into it, you almost forget that you're an amateur.
Again, we walked around, trying our luck at different games but ended up losing about four hundred that Adam won by getting three of a kind. As I expected, we found ourselves back at the three card poker table. Out of everything there, that seemed to have the best odds and payouts.
We still had most of the money (in chips) that we came with, but contrary to what I had told myself earlier that day, I somehow found myself handing the dealer seventy dollars out of my eighty so that I could get more chips to play with. I remember thinking to myself as I got dealt my cards,"What the fuck. I'll play a little, if I lose, I'll make my money back and then cash out."
Right after I thought that, I looked at my cards, placed my chips on top so that I could play them, turned to Adam and said,"Oh my god, wait until you see what hand I have."
"Is it something good?" he asked.
"Yeah, I think I have something good...." I said.
Again, he asked what hand it was and even though I wasn't going to tell him; I was just going to let the dealer flip them over, I couldn't help myself. He kept persintently asking what I had and I blurted out,"seven, eight, nine of clubs!"
"What?! get the fuck out!" he said. "You have a straight flush?! Are you sure?"
And for a moment, I had to think about it twice. "Yeah , I said, "I have a straight flush."
Sure enough, I did and it payed eight hundred dollars. At that moment, I felt like I was on top of the world. We stayed for awhile longer and lost three hundred. Before we lost anymore, we both decided that it was time to head home. All in all, it was a good time. We could have came home with more money than we did, but we could have lost more money too.
On the way home, Adam said to me,"Dammit, we should have cashed out when we were up about nine hundred bucks." I agreed with him, but stated that it was really hard to leave the table. I can see how people can get addicted to gambling. Maybe I should stay away from casinos so that I don't develop a habit. All throughout this week though I've been thinking about how I want to go back.
On my first trip to Atlantic City, I had a blast and I was only there for four hours. I can't even imagine spending an entire weekend there. From now until forever, the image of seven, eight, nine of clubs will always be embedded in my memory.