Tuesday, October 23, 2007

BIG SPENDER

The cross-country bus from New York stopped for the evening meal in Elko, Nevada. As we stretched and stumbled into the nondescript beside-the-highway pit stop, I noted that the decor consisted mainly of slot machines.

After what might be called dinner, I stopped to use the ladies' room while my traveling companion went ahead and got back on the bus. On the way out, my attention was arrested by one of a group of one-armed bandits on the wall.

"Oh," I said to myself, "that's a slot machine. It takes dimes."

I fished a dime out of my purse, dropped it in, and pulled the handle. The machine whirred around, came up three lemons, and disgorged thirteen or fourteen dimes, which I scooped out and put in my pocket.

Back on the bus, several people proclaimed their winnings at similar activities.

"Everybody seems to have won," my friend observed.

"The ones who lost aren't talking about it," I answered.

As for me, I knew full well and then some that I would only spoil my record by putting any more money in slot machines or any other system for separating fools from etc. I kept my handful of dimes in my pocket and never even considered trying it again. From that day to this, my lifetime track record on gambling shows a profit of 1300%.