The Thousand Dollar Writeup, Third Part

Bet you thought I forgot that I needed to wrap up the AC tale from last weekend. Maybe you were just hoping it.

Mary was up early. Aspiring Captain Toms, take heed: penis on the back is not an acceptable trade-off for early risers (and I'm resisting the obvious double entendre here to prove that I don't *always* act like a 12 year old boy). But once I'm awake, I don't usually go back to sleep, so I grumblingly joined Mary for some breakfast before heading over to the Borgata.

When I got seated in the 10/20 must move game, who should I see sitting a few tables away? CK. You remember CK, right? The "stunning Asian woman" seated next to SoxLover in the 2/5 game who left a comment to my previous chapter of this saga?

Say hello to CK, everybody.

Well, kids, CK looked to be in the 10/20 main game (or maybe a 2/5 game - it was difficult to tell) and was showing the clear signs of someone who spent all night gambling - slightly baggy eyes, slumping in her chair, and wearing the same clothes as the night before. A woman after my own degenerate heart. I went and found Mary in her 1/2 game and told her that she was free of any further Captain Tom huggling because I had found someone even more cracked out than her - SoxLover's new friend CK.

CK didn't stay long though. By the time of the first dealer push at my table, she had disappeared. Foiled again.

10/20 was going well - I was up $340ish - before I got moved into one of the main games and started giving some back. It was populated with some solid players, and after about an hour or two I decided to rack up and hit the B-Bar for a drink. You see, during that time, AlCantHang and Big Mike finally made their triumphant arrival to the Borgata. Al, Mike, Derek, Mary and I got the booze flowing around 4pm. We were there for a while. Those four people are great drinking companions, but they weren't the only thing keeping me in the B-Bar. I was literally stuck to the floor.

Now ladies, I know that I'm an imposing specimen of masculinity - I mean, 130 WHOLE pounds of fury! - but when I go to a bar, I expect the management to keep their floors clean of broken glass, vomit, and MOST importantly, super glue. What made it worse was that I didn't realize I was stuck to the floor until I tried to move away from the bar (my first mistake, clearly) and almost fell over.

With some effort, we managed to extricate myself from the situation, but made sure not to warn anyone else so that the mirth could be repeated for our own amusement later on.

Heather arrived a bit later. Someone mentioned that Jordan busted out of the WSOPC $300 event before the first break, but Hoy was still alive. Gus and Kat were on their way to town. And who knew what the crazy IHO girls were up to?

Back to the poker room and the 10/20 game. 2.5 or 3 hours later, up over $350, bringing total 10/20 winnings for the weekend to an even $1,000. Time to call it a day and commence the boozing in full.

I went to B-Bar, fully expecting to find Al and Mike still there, but they had vanished. If not at B-Bar, where's the next closest source of alcohol? Gypsy Bar, of course. Some cover band was playing a gig there, and Al knew one of the guys in the band. They played about what you would expect - GnR, Journey, etc.

Overall not bad, but of course we did have to deal with certain standbys. At the first Bruce Springsteen number, I turned to Derek and said "How do I know we're in New Jersey?" He laughed. At the first Billy Joel number, I turned to Derek and said "I guarantee you that three songs from now, Bon Jovi will make an appearance." He laughed again. I didn't let it rest though. After another song, I told Derek "Bon Jovi in two songs." Another song went by, and I told Derek "One more song til Bon Jovi."

You know where this is going. If this had been a prop bet, I would have forced Derek to take odds *against* the next song being Bon Jovi. It just wouldn't have been right to take his money like that without giving him a fighting chance. But, no bet, and sure enough, the next song was Living on a Prayer.

Around this time I got a very strange text from SoxLover - something about having dinner with "CK your mark" and that he was coming by the Gypsy Bar to find me. I waited for 10 or 15 minutes, but when he didn't show I decided to bail and go find Mary. Turns out that I missed having dinner with THE CK, who was STILL awake and playing poker and had wound up in the 10/20 2-way game (O8 / Stud8) with SoxLover. I think that was three strikes, and I hadn't even pulled on my batting gloves.

Whatever, a FatBurger milkshake at the Borgata food court hit the spot, and with Mary, Someone Who Is Dead to Me, Karol and Alceste assembled, we headed to Showboat for the blogger happy hour. Milkshake before booze is never a good idea, but somehow I fought my way through it and even consumed the double SoCo shot that Al dumped in front of me without "blowing Technicolor chunks", as I believe he phrased it.

I could tell you that AlCantHang didn't kiss me at all on Saturday. I could tell you that he wasn't at all egged on by "my LA boyfriend" during a dial-a-shot from the House of Blues. I could tell you we all didn't laugh when Speaker told Al to "give them all a kiss from me", Al counter-proposed "how bout just the girls" and Speaker said "ok -- and F-Train." But I would be lying if I told you any of that.

And so it was, at somewhere around midnight Saturday night, I was kissed by a somewhat drunk, somewhat fat, very hairy hippie. Really, my night was complete at that point, and my Under Suspicion title had been fully restored. I don't know why I even bothered staying awake another four hours. The night could not get any better - or worse. However...

Around 4am, Someone Who Is Dead to Me, Fisch and I wandered over to the Taj poker room to check up on Mary, Karol and Alceste. In the large hallway between "Rim", a restaurant that wisely does not serve any tossed salads, and the poker room, we passed a kid in his early 20s. He was seated in a banquet hall style chair, with his jeans partially down around his waist exposing his skivvies and his shirt completely unbuttoned, revealing his bare chest. His head was slumped slightly to one side, resting against the wall, and in front of the chair was a large puddle of vomit. I didn't take a single photo the entire trip to AC, but I have to admit that with my digital camera on me at the time, I had to fight the urge to rob kid of what little dignity he might have had left. You don't puke and pass out; you puke and rally. What a fucking rookie. He'll never aspire to a life of true degeneracy that way.

Speaking of which, it would be remiss of me not to mention that CK was going to drive back to New York after her dinner with SoxLover, before he graciously insisted that she crash in his room for a few hours while he and his friend were out gamb00ling it up. Even more remiss would be not to mention how "a few hours" meant "all night", and how she decided she might "hit the table for a few hours" Sunday morning before she left AC. 1-800-GAMBLER was made for these kinds of people. My kind of people.

This concludes the $1,000 writeup. Let us never speak of it again.