Column:

Face reality and go gamble

By Dan Friesen

Published April 15, 2008

Children, reality is a complicated thing. There are rules of existence that we have no choice but to abide by; our world is predicated on these rules: humans are not capable of self-propelled flight, we can’t control the weather, and try as we might, nothing we do can change the passage of time.

The story of the history of man is the story of man trying to deal with the irrefutability of these rules. Coming face to face with the fact that we as humans really do have a limit to our potential can be a painful experience. Some people deal with the pain by seeking to help society, through inventing things or experimenting to make medical breakthroughs. These people usually live miserable lives, looked upon by society as wackos. The pain and stress of trying to advance society, all the while being shunned and denigrated by the very society they seek to advance, almost always leads to alcoholism and self-destruction.

I feel this pain. I’m pained that I can’t fly, but instead of spending all my days trying to invent flying boots, I’ve decided to skip past all the struggle and just get straight to the drinking.

But, that’s only one of my vices; I also like to gamble. I am a consummate gambler. Over the weekend, a few friends and I went out to the Ameristar Casino, and I lost myself some serious money. Every time I go out a-gambling, I come out up about two bucks, or down a hundred, and somehow, losing a hundred is much more satisfying. There’s something vaguely insulting about winning two dollars at the casino. I mean, if I go through the trouble and take the risk of getting a prostitute, I don’t want her to just spit on my wang then leave.

I started the day with playing some video poker (lost three dollars). Three minutes after sitting down at the machines, my buddy Nicky Gifts won $100 in one hand. Time to move on.

We decided to hit up a blackjack table, where I lost forty bucks in approximately two minutes. The fucking dealer hit three straight blackjacks. Three! After the third, I knew I should have got up and left, but for some reason, I had to keep going. Then the dealer hit a fourth blackjack, and I was out of chips. I still suspect there was some trick dealing going on there.

The next stop was the penny slots. I’ve never been a fan of the penny slots. If losing all your money on one hand of blackjack is getting shot in the head, then losing all your money at those goddamn penny slots is like being bled to death with a million paper cuts. Regular “cherries and sevens” slot machines make total sense, but I have no idea how to judge the relative value of duvets and armoires. So, I ended up losing about forty more dollars on the “Antique Appraisal” penny slot machine. Stupid “Antiques Roadshow” themed slot machine, enticing me in with those valuable porcelain elephants and Civil War era toy drums.

From there, it was on to the roulette table, where I lost my last forty dollars. I put it all on black, and it came up 36 red (though I was out of chips, I lingered at the table and smoked a cigarette, and 36 red hit the next two times, too. There was some really fishy business going on at the Ameristar.

Now, a lot of people might think that I would be mad that I lost $120 at the casino, but that’s simply not the case. The reality is that you aren’t going to win much money at the casino, and the only way to fight this rule of reality is getting lots of cheap drinks, or failing that, getting some cheesecake on a stick. That shit is tasty.