Flashy Me!

Day 5 - I sleep better in Vegas than anywhere else, as long as the bed is decent. Six hours straight through and I was ready to rock.

It was moving day, squeezing myself out of the Luxor Sphinxter and into the Aloha vibe of The California Hotel And Casino - or The Cal, as we vibers refer to it.

You know the drill by now. Little Giant. Punishment nuts. Blogging. Then breakfast - with the addition of packing before breakfast.

The folio on the TV looked good, the scum water reward resort fee clawback had happened, and there were no food charges.

At the Pyramid Cafe, I got seated, and found that the waiter assigned to my section was an idiot. Loud, flippant, overly friendly in a fake way. I hated him immediately, reflecting that if I were a waiter, I would probably be loud, flippant and overly friendly in a fake way.

"GOOOD MORNING What can I getcha?" he shouted at me.

I ordered the western omelette using as few words as possible and avoiding eye contact.

"WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE TOAST?" barked the Shouty Waiter.

"...wheat"

Thankfully he went away, and thankfully, some other restaurant Sheila dude delivered my omelette, which was astonishingly large. It was clearly twice as big as my head.

Also, thankfully, it was delicious, as were the hash browns.

The Shouty Waiter pogoed up to the table next to me, touching the man of the couple seated there on the shoulder as he approached, scaring the scrap out of the old bastard.

He barked a bunch of nonsense at them and then made touchy shoulder with the old bastard's Sheila wife. What the hell was he on?

Unfortunately, the old bastard couple made the mistake of engaging the enemy while occupying the lower ground. And Shouty mouth-blasted them with all kinds of spurious and unthought-through observations. At one point, he delivered a mini TED talk about all the ways temperature differences give you the flu (they don't, the flu virus does), and then described the symptoms complete with random bodily fluid highlights.

The breakfast waterboarding of the old bastard couple complete, Shouty McAnnoyance wheeled around, looked at my omelette, and bellowed as he passed, "YAY FOOD!!!"

Fortunately, breakfast really was good, and all that was left was to sign the check and get out.

I made a point of digging out every bit of change I had on me to include in the tip, a long with three dollar bills.

The Pyramid Idiot remarked on how well I'd done eating most of the omelette, and promised to return with the paperwork after I gave my room number and last name.

And he did show up, slapping the chit down on the table and remarking, "Just sign at the bottom, sorry, the receipt is kind of mucked up, I think I got salsa on it. WHOOPSY!"

At this point, I realized I was being served by a 9 year old filter-less dweeb trapped in the grown up body of an asshole named Richard.

"SEE YA TOMORROW", Shouty asserted with all the grace of a firehose that has escaped the control of the handler and was flying back and forth in random, violent, dangerous and unpredictable arcs.

I took back one of the dollar bills and made my escape.

Now, I had learned a lesson the night before, blowing the lead that an incredible run of winning Keno in the morning had given me on degenerate, good money after bad, desperation losing Keno in the evening.

And that lesson was that if I'd taken a jersey over the head enforcer pounding once, that clearly today the pendulum would swing the other way, and the thing to do would be to repeat the process.

And yeah, I went on complete video Keno tilt. And yeah, I blew through my entire day's stake.

I did not hit one single useful thing.

But you know, I didn't get too upset about it. As it stood I was only down $200 on the trip, which was pretty good.

I decided I would just forget about it as best I could, start the day over again when I got to the Cal with a fresh bankroll, and lie about it in the blog, never admitting the stupid, stupid, stupid thing I'd done.

Oh - I also got a cup of coffee to enjoy while getting roundhoused mercilessly and repeatedly. So there's that.

After packing the last of my stuff, and checking the safe 99 times, I checked out.

My bill for 4 nights in the Luxor One Bedroom Tower Suite was $150. Definitely acceptable.

My Lyft arrived quickly and was another sort of 'adventure'. The woman driving was coughing up cans of corn in the front, and so sick she should have stayed at home. I only just accepted that somehow I escaped getting sick from the plane ride here, and now I am most certainly going to catch whatever this hag had. There was an inexplicable route involved, and she shouted at me at the end of it all because I tried to close the trunk on her precious Tesla. So long, one-star no tip sick bitch.

I was zero for two on service so far.

I was very glad to see the Cal again, but sad to see that more of my old favorite machines had disappeared, including Shock Wave and the bank of 50 cent progressive uprights.

Bag checked, I had time to kill before my room was ready. What was there to do in a place like that?

Well, I went on a fantastic run on Bonus Poker for one thing. Parlayed from quarters to 50 cents to dollars. Didn't get the win I wanted, but I played for an hour and a half on $100, and did almost $4K in coin in. All that was missing was a set of Aces or a Royal.

And Maria spotted me within 2 minutes of me sitting down, and gave me a warm welcome back to the Cal. We chatted for a while about how the last year had been since I was here.

Getting hungry, I remembered it was Friday - Oxtail Stew day at the coffee shop! On my way, I bumped into my host, who was extremely friendly and mentioned more than once that if there was anything I needed to just ask!

What this means is 'ask me for a meal and if you've played your ass off, I might give you a comp, but otherwise, I'll squint at the computer screen, move the mouse around randomly and mutter, hmmm, you haven't quite covered your room yet, you need to play just a bit more'.

I think.

It was probably better to charge everything to the room, and then see if any food charges could be taken off at the end of my stay. I'm probably complaining in advance, and I really shouldn't, my host is awesome and hooked me up with $700 worth of room nights.

The Oxtail Stew was just amazing. I had it with fries instead of rice, ladling the hot rich stew over my fries. Comfort food nonpareil for the losing gambler!

And then I remembered I should charge the meal to my room. Except at this point, I didn't have one.

I phoned the front desk. I'd have to show up there with ID and credit card.

At the cash, the young woman working there was really wonderful. She listened to my predicament, called the front desk, had me sign the check, and let me take off to the lobby. I promised I would return.

I'm certain that 99 times of 100, a cashier would say 'sorry Mac' and make me pay up before leaving.

At the lobby, I earned some karma by holding a spot for a lovely Island Senior Girlfriend (or ISG) who wanted to sit instead of standing in line. When I got to the front, I waved her over and let her go ahead of me. Surely, I would now be a winner.

The front desk Sheila assigned me a room and when I saw the number, I freaked out a little bit, inwardly. But then I thought, well, this room may not be up high, and may not have a view to the west, and may not have a lucky room number, but somebody has to take the shittiest room in the hotel, and it might as well be me. Karma!

Got my keys, got my bag, hightailed it to the coffee shop, resigned a new check, and all was good!

Now, about my room, number 1313.

It's convenient - I counted that I can make it to the casino in under 100 steps. It has no view. It smells lightly of fryer oil. And sometimes it smells deeply of fryer oil, and searing meat.

Video Keno having made me it's bitch to the tune of $900 over a 12 hour period, I was in no position to complain. Authentic chaos? Yup, right there in my room.

I unpacked and was feeling so, so tired. Vegasing can get to you.

The bed felt very nice indeed. I kicked off my shoes, and set a timer for 21 minutes. It was late in the day and a long nap now would screw my schedule.

I napped for 20 of the 21 minutes and then just stared at the ceiling for an hour, listening to the sounds of fans and sirens, reveling in the aromas of various deep fried foods.

Did I even want to go back down and gamble? Ugh.

But I thought back to different times I'd been here with the Quad Queen, and how she never missed an opportunity. Life is short, and I'd come to play!

So I got up and formulated a bit of a plan. I'd play twenties, and move around a lot. Avoid getting into chasing on one machine, which had really been my only downfall this trip.

Down in the casino, I swung for the fences and put $20 in a dollar machine. Six hands of video poker later it was gone. OK, I tried.

Then I thought of Pinchy and Flashy, the two machines in the alcove that have provided so many thrills over the years.

They were still there, and a woman was sitting at Pinchy, but not playing. I sat down at Flashy, put in $20, and pulled up Double Double Bonus, which was 9/6.

I played about 10 hands before holding three to a royal and watching the needed cards appear.

A royal flush! I'd earned my moniker for the trip! I was again, truly, Royal Flusher! And my bankroll was restored! I was a winner again! Good old Flashy!

It's always such a wonderful feeling.

The woman had asked me what game I was playing and I said, Double Double, but what difference does it make, there's no hand better! She looked pissed off.

I thought 'sucks to be you, rocks to be me'.

I cashed out and went and got my money and when I walked by the machine again, I saw there was a man sitting at it.

As I passed by, I said to him, "You're next!" He was not amused. And wifey gave me the stink eye.

In a flash I figured it out. She had been waiting for him to arrive before starting to play. He was going to play Flashy and I'd slipped in there and gotten a Royal Flush. I'd basically taken his royal from him. I felt nothing but glee. Honestly, the way things work, he never would have gotten the hand I played. They change hundreds if not thousands of times per second. But the mind works the way it works. 

Sorry, not sorry.

I've had at least one other royal on Flashy (a dollar one). What a great machine.

And the Room 1313 Karma had totally paid off!

Maria swung by and it turns out I can get Maker's on the floor. I got a couple of them and a water and celebrated, playing some Keno to cool down.

Later, I went up to the room to stash some cash in the safe, and get a traveler. I played some more low-ball video Keno, and then had a really nice run on Bonus Poker.

Pointies showed up, and I went to bed happy, with a big fat Travelambo full of hundies under my pillow.

I was up $540 on the trip and I'd scored the two big hands I wanted - a six out of six on Keno, and of course, the wonderful, beautiful Royal Flush!