Doughnut Karma

Saturday October 24, 2015 - part 1

That first day in Vegas is always a tough one. The long trip wears a flusher out, and then you get 5 hours sleep and then you play and drink your ass off all of day one. The second night you are ready to crash. And so, we slept in till 8:00 Vegas time. Perfectly respectable. Kind of lame, actually.

We headed down and stopped at Lappert’s for a coffee for me and hot water for Quad Queen Tea. You get a free doughnut with coffee, which I didn’t want (the doughnut), so I gave it to another guy who was picking up his order. But he didn’t want it either.

Damn. I needed some doughnut-gifting karma! I tried another customer in line, but he didn’t want it either.

We talked about the doughnut karma problem and whether or not you got positive karma points by giving away the free doughnut because a) it was free anyway, and b) you didn’t want it in the first place. I still say this is a big win in the metaphysical brownie point realm of the heavens above.

Our first destination - multi-play Boner Pokus. And I got on a super-run at it, hitting tons of quads, and doing $5K in coin in, hitting a high point of plus $400, but cashing out at plus $150. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could win like that all day long?

Meanwhile, my partner (who had not offered up a Karma Doughnut) did $8K coin in but lost $300.

Breakfast? We skipped it. Well, I skipped it. QQ didn’t want breakfast. And I wanted to win. So I eschewed breakfast and eswallowed it instead, in the form of a number of Bloody Caesars.

This forms the basis of a balanced and nutricious breakfast, featuring the fiber equivalent of two olives (in the guise of two actual olives). Per Mary. Prize inside!

At ten we headed over to the Cal for round 2 of the vp tournament - and we both did shit. I did even worse than the first day, no quads at all. QQ had one, but did shit. We both did shit. We did shit the first day and we did shit the second day. Shit shit shit shit.

Back at MSS, the Spin Queen had a novel suggestion - let’s play a slot - Wheel of Meat!!! I thought this was a good call. We sat down at the two machines on the far left on the valet side wall of Main Street, me on the left, just off center, about 29 inches above the casino carpet, which had been last shampooed four nights previously by a Corsican whose father ran - you guessed it - an olive business, which might have even supplied the very olives I drank for breakfast. Coincidence? I THINK NOT.

QQ slipped $100 into the machine, brave soul, so not to be a spinny pooper, I slipped $100 into my machine. I was very careful to slip it in, not slide it, not put it, not place it, not feed it, but slip it.

It’s all about technique and solidarityness.

Like a couple of youngsters, we took turns. It was so cute it would make you barf. She’d play. Then I’d play. Then she’d play. Then I’d play. After a few pulls like this, she won $30 and to my surprise, cashed out not long after.

“I have my initial buy in of seven dollars left. I’m going to play multiplay,” she said, and took off for the bank just behind us. It looks like I'd misunderstood. She'd put in $7 an I'd put in $100.

Fine. I decided to play out the string. I don’t play slots much anymore because I never win anymore. It has been years since I had a decent win on dollar slots.

I’d spin. Then I’d pretend she’d spun. Then I’d spin. Then I’d pretend she’d spun. Two bucks a throw.

I spun and spun and nothing nothing nothing. Okay fine. I’d just pound the thing and hope.

An exciting $2 win came up. Then a whle lot of nothing. It was embarrassing. When I was down to about $30, I won $5. My God this was fucking grim. I started to mentally write off the hundy and then remembered what Jimmy Poon had wisely told me one time.

“Royal Flusher,” he’d said, “There is no sense in checking your shoes for dog shit until you are out of the cow pasture.”

I spun on. And spun. And lost.

It was down at the point where you pretty much know you are out of options - I had $5 left. Enough for two more spins. To my - and your - amazement, I got the coveted ‘Spin’ symbol on the third line. I knew what to do - I spun the big wheel. Because as they say, the spinning wheel got to go ‘round.

It spun around and started to slow, and you know how they pepper big wins on the wheel with loser amounts all around it, and I spotted the big win coming around and then looked to see what the loser amounts were around it, because I knew in my heart of hearts that that was what I would be getting because it was what you ALWAYS get. And that’s when the spinning wheel stopped spinning - on $500.

Holy shit lemarde, as they sort of say out east. Boy I didn’t see that one coming. I raised my little Flusher arms in triumph, for anyone that cared to be watching. (There was not.)

Well that was pretty sweet. I did one more spin, took my pictures for this blog (which may or may not appear depending on how much juice I have left in the chargerless Bonebook), and ran off across the Swiss meadow like Mary Fucking Poppins singing “The Hills Are Alive With The Sound of Money”.

When I rejoined the Quad Queen (she’d seen me taking the photos and sussed out the win), we did a post game debrief.

“I can’t tell it again,” I said, “I’m too tired!!!”

The Quad Queen gestured and handed me the pipe and grunted wildly. Her gesture said ‘tell it again and smoke this pipe”.

“Okay, okay, one more time…. I was at the machine.” I made a gesture like playing a slot machine.

“The Tatonka came!” I made horns and scratched the dirt on the casino floor with my feet, snorting and blowing snot like a big fucking Tatonka.

“I rode my slot seat fast!!!” I gestured whipping the slot seat, it’s legs going 100 miles an hour to catch the big spinning Tatonka.

Then I made the big spinning motion. “AND DOWN IT WENT!!!!” I crashed to the ground.

Then I made the gesture of eating the machine’s bloody heart while it was still spinning, but by then the Quad Queen had ordered a drink and was engrossed in her video poker machine.

Still, though, it was pretty fucking triumphant.