Dispatch: That's the Way the Fan Belts

This is my 1,000th post on Las Vegas the Royal Flusher Way. Quite a milestone. I know there are some of you out there that have read all 1,000 - heck not even I have done that.

Thank you for your loyalty and support - you readers are the reason I do this. Jimmy Poon, on the other hand, does it because he thinks we are just about to strike it rich with the moneytization plan he put together four years ago.

I also pay him a case of Costco tuna a month for his cat Tang.

R.F.

So the last time we saw Funkhouser, he was wandering around the Linq with yours truly and eight pounds of Hash House a go go meatloaf in a take-out bag.

We toured around the Linq and found some machines to try, back in a corner, which I could just recognize as pretty much the spot where I had my best ever run on a $20 bill - that famed 4 hour Jacks or Better marathon.

It was also near the spot where the change guy put a bag of nickels into a quarter slot. And when I cashed out the machine rained nickels for 15 minutes. Because it didn't count nickels on the way out, only quarters. It was awesome. (I told them. I'm stupid.)



We found a couple of cockpit-style video poker machines - the kind you sort of climb in to rather than sit at. Funk on the right, me on the left, server coming by with Maker's for me and Crown Apple Royal Flusher Apple for him and I'm very happy until I realize that I am not winning a goddamned thing.

Nor have I been all day.

I went through a couple of twenties and said, "Sorry bud, this machine hates me, I have to go to the other side."
"OK, this machine is doing well on Double Double."

I started up again on the back side of the bank of 4 cockpit machines. Within about 3 minutes Funkhouser's mug appeared, sideways, around the side of the machine.

"Four of a kind!"

His luck is still golden, diamond-encrusted, and somewhere very deep, dark and safe.

I tried a different game, then another game. I was floundering, just watching everything drain away.

Next thing I knew Funk was strapping beside me, stashing a TITO in his wallet, and shoving a hundy into the fuel gauge.

"Did you see that panhandler? Looked like that Pirates of the Caribbean guy, not the Keith Richards one, the no left eye skinny one?" he asked.

"No. Why?"

"He hustled me. He said he needed money to get a replacement fan belt at CVS so he could get home."

"Holy crap. Right here?! Good thing you got rid of him, I never even saw the guy."

"He probably saw I had lots of credits on the machine."

"So you told him to beat it."

"I gave him some money. To make him go away."

"What???!!!! How could you reward that kind of irresponsible lack of fan belt maintenance? How much?"

"Twenty dollar bill."

I couldn't believe it. Of all the sob stories to fall for!

"You should have given him a pantload of leftover meat loaf instead. Jeez!"

"Look," said Funkhouser, "I've had a great run lately. An amazing run. And... I just don't want to do anything to fuck with the karma."

About three hands later, Funk was drawing from three pointies.

Funkhouser gets four pointies! No kicker, though...

I had to admit, he had a point, about the karma. And I guess it never hurts that much to help out a smelly fellow gambler, down on his luck. Because that's exactly where the money went, we agreed there was no question about it. The fan belt story was bogus.

Funkhouser stashed another ticket and started again.

Meanwhile, my phone battery power level had gone critical again, down to less than 20%, and I had to shut off the display and wifi and bluetooth and location services and fifty other slidey settings, and powered them up only when needed.

That was okay, though, there was fuck all for me to take pictures of anyway.

But, I finally got on the board with quad 10s.

Not to be outdone, Mr. Golden Horseshoe racked up another $100 with this. He was unstoppable!!!

FIVE pointies (sorta) this time. We were really looking for that fifth Ace for $500, but this was a decent 2nd prize.

Meanwhile, on my side, this happened.

Dealt Four to a Royal.

All I needed was that single Jack...

Fuckers.

Yeah, I got jacked, all right. I won $5. Jack of Spades woulda got me $1040. And 63 cents.

"Funk." I said, "Go find that panhandler who hustled you right fucking now, and bring him here. I'm going to give him a bunch of fan belt money."