This is the faux Chihuly from my condo, not a fixture in a casino, but you get the picture…
I have an addictive personality, but I have never been tempted to gamble. I don’t understand the rules of the games, and I hate casinos. Mind you, I haven’t been to a gambling establishment since I’ve been sober, but wouldn’t it be worse? Wouldn’t I be even more aware of the booze soaked carpets; the Dale Chihuly blown glass monstrosities; the all you can eat buffets coagulating under greasy sneeze-guards; and the loneliness?
This is actually London’s V&A atrium, but it kind of looks like check-in at the Bellagio…
And how about those Native American casinos in the Upper Peninsula? Plunked as incongruous as spaceships in cornfields, their neon signs blinking above the pines – JACKPOT! PAYBACK TIME KEMOSABE! There is something sad about the manufactured hope, the fizzling clinks of change into slot machines, the blight on the landscape…
Speaking of blights, I once took a boyfriend to Las Vegas for his birthday. We got into a fight (suffice to say it’s a red flag when a guy unpacks a length of rope and duct tape with his toiletries…), he went home and I was left to my own devices for the weekend. Unless you are a hooker or Celine Dion, being a woman alone in a casino when you don’t know how to play anything, is a horrible experience.
So I started drinking. It is easy to drink in a fancy casino. Pretty women dressed as gladiators or milkmaids or shamans, keep turning up with tiny drink trays balanced on manicured palms…
I decided to make the best of a bleak situation (after downing enough liquid courage to be inappropriately cocky) and try Black Jack. How hard could it be, I thought? I’ve never been accused of being like John Nash (with numbers and equations whizzing across my forehead), but I can count to 21, even while drunk.
So I found a crowded Black Jack table with a friendly looking dealer and perched one cheek on a seat prettily. When the time seemed appropriate I said, “Hit me.” Everyone nodded and smiled. They were however, a serious bunch, and they counted the combinations to 21 so quickly, I just stopped adding and looked at the pictures…
At some point, my tablemates turned against me. I tapped for another card with ill regard for the odds when I had 18 and the dealer was sitting with 17. Are you groaning? It seemed like they all wanted to hit me. The guy beside me said, “That card was mine!”. You could tell the dealer felt sorry for me as she slid chips soundlessly across the felt. Everyone got up – disgusted and moved to other, more legitimate tables.
I went back to my room and ordered room service. I didn’t lose enough to get any special favors. I could have been anywhere. Anywhere they served up cheese fries and bottles of cold Chardonnay and temporary safe haven from an unanticipated streak of bad luck…
