The Thousand Dollar Writeup, Part 1
"Whoever wins at least $1,000 has to write up the trip," Dawn declared to Rybka, Ross, Mary and me. To be frank, I'm not really sure I ever agreed to this, but here I am writing up the trip.
0.5 hours of $1/$2 NLHE = +$52
0.5 hours of drunken "Tilt a 2/4 Table" = -$45
11.0 hours of $10/$20 LHE = +$1,000
Total trip earnings = $1,007
Don't think that I didn't consider making a $10 horn bet at the craps table Saturday night to get below the magical four-figure mark. But I'm getting ahead of myself. We should probably start at the beginning of the trip, and the beginning takes place at 1am Friday morning with a text message from Dawn to me.
I'll be at your place at 11:10am.
There had previously been some discussion as to our time of departure for Atlantic City, which we agreed to be 11-11:30am Friday morning. Late Thursday afternoon, the departure time was suddenly shifted to noon via Declaration From On High (aka email from the person with the car). Given what I know of Dawn's and Rybka's punctuality, I preferred the earlier time and said so. Thus, Dawn's 1am text would have been most welcome if I wasn't already peacefully slumbering, with intentions not to wake before 10:30am, when it arrived.
11:07 found me brushing my teeth when Dawn called. Her statement, "I'm outside," was met with confused silence on my end. Remembering that she couldn't see my puzzled look, I drooled a toothpaste-filled "Huh?" into the phone just before she hung up.
"Didn't you get my text?" she asked.
Glancing at the phone display, I noticed the unread text icon. My eyes narrowed a bit. "When did you send it?" The last time Dawn and I went through this routine, three weeks prior, the text came in at 4:50am.
"Uh... I dunno. 11:30?" Not so much.
"You weren't supposed to be here until noon," I told her, a bit peevishly. "I haven't even packed a bag yet."
"Fine, I'll go get Mary and come back for you."
I hung up the phone, finished brushing my teeth, and hurriedly threw some clothes, a few personal electronic devices, and my bankroll in a backpack. When that was done, I put the kettle on the stove to make some tea to take with me in the car. Given the start to the day, I'd definitely need the caffeine to take the edge off of my normal morning irritability. Within ten minutes, I had tea and backpack in hand and was ready to go. One problem: no Dawn.
Ten minutes became thirty minutes became forty five minutes. My tea had long since been finished. Something was wrong. Mary lives a ten-minute walk from me. I called Dawn, and on the fourth ring she answered.
"Where are you?" I asked, the exasperation plain in my tone.
"I'm at Rybka's place. We're just getting in the car to go get Karol, then we'll come back for you and Mary." Repeat puzzled silence from me.
"I thought you were picking up Mary...?"
"No, we're going to get Karol first and then come back for you."
Karol's family lives much deeper in Brooklyn than Mary and I. In a perfectly sane, logical world, she would be picked up last, on our way out of Brooklyn to AC. Unfortunately, Dawn Summers, as her friends and acquaintances know, is not often a sane or logical woman.
"Look," I told her, "that makes absolutely no sense. Come get Mary and me, and we'll pick Karol up last as we're leaving Brooklyn." I heard her relay these instructions to Rybka. After some mild disagreement, she seemed to convince him.
"Ok, we're coming to get you," she said, and hung up.
Thirty minutes went by. The time on the clock read 12:25, long past the promised "absolutely not later than noon" departure (surprise). I had been sitting around my living room, bored and frustrated, for over an hour. Thinking that maybe she could shed some light on what the problem was, I called Mary.
"Dawn got lost," Mary told me. "I was waiting out in front of my building for her for a while before she called and said she was at Wyckoff and Third. Since I was outside and wasn't sure exactly where Wyckoff is, I couldn't give her directions." Yes, that's right. The woman who spent her entire life living in Brooklyn (except for a three-month stint of insanity on the Upper East Side) got lost driving the eight blocks between my place and Mary's place.
The phone chirped at me. Dawn was on the other line. "I think she's finally here," I told Mary. "See you in a bit."
And so, fully 80 minutes after she first stopped by my house, I climbed into Dawn's car. Dawn's face was dutifully hidden behind her hands in shame. Five minutes later we had Mary, and fifteen minutes after that Karol joined us. We were finally on our way to Cracklantic City.