Tuesday, November 22, 2011

slot machines ....

i'm not even sure i believe in luck ... the prompt assumes that luck is a notion you buy into .... so ...
some lucky stuff ...
lucky that i went to emory, moved to atlanta, met mr.e.beck.artist, liked him, dated him 5 years, married him, had babies with him, had twins, could afford a house .... but that might be more blessed ... or charmed ... or serendipitous good fortune ...

oh ... here's a lucky story .... gambling ... you need luck for gambling, right?

i went on a cruise with my parents and three brothers when i was 18 ... i was graduated freshly from high school ... the oldest brother was fresh from college graduation .... there was a number 2 brother between and a number three brother, younger than i am ... got that? so all pretty grown up ....

the cruise ship casino opened once it was  a certain number of miles off shore ... and there was no legal limit to gambling on the high seas ... one brother or another said, let's go to the casino .... we all said YEAH UH HUH YES ... let's gamble ...

my mom said, no, you can't gamble ..that's ridiculous ... our family doesn't gamble ...
my dad said, oh, let them gamble their spare change, they'll learn the "no good can come from gambling lesson" before we've even been at sea a day ....

now, that's not my dad's normal modus operandi ... he is SO not a gambling kind of guy .... he's more of a depression baby: count your pennies, guard your hard earned dollars, waste not want not .... but my brothers and i merrily dashed off to the casino .... come to find out we were only old enough for the slots ... no one under 21 at the tables ... i guess brother 1 could have done the tables .... but instead we cshed in a ten for quarters ... time for the quarter slots ...

here's the lucky bit.

my FIRST quarter into that slot machine won 100 dollars.  truly.  400 quarters.  my brothers hadn't even put in a quarter ... we were laughing and giddy like we had won a million dollars ... OH MY ... we HAVE to go show mom and dad ... who were sitting on deck somewhere ... we gathered all those quarters in little paper cups and in our hands and in one outstretched shirt ... and tromped off gleefully to see my parents ...

we walked up raising a ruckus .. MOM! DAD! ... one HUNDRED dollars in quarters ...
my mother turns to my dad .... what was the lesson you thought they'd learn ... we laughed and promised not to become gambling addicts and to save some of it and back to the casino we dashed ...

and brother 2 put in HIS FIRST quarter .... and got  100 dollars in quarters .... WHAT??? no way ....more quarter stashing in cups and hands and outstretched tshirts and back to our parent on deck ...

we were loud and happy and LOOK mom, LOOK dad ... 100 MORE dollars ... yes!

and mom looked at dad ... about that lesson? have they learned it yet?

yup ... that was some luck, right?

this was a long, long, long, long time ago ... i need to check with my brothers and parents and see how different my recollection of it is from theirs .....




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