Winning for losing (part 1 of 3)

Atlantic city, martinis and slot machines

PRELUDE

If you read Lightning Bug strictly for clinical content, skip to the P.S.S. at the end, and come back in two weeks, because today and next week, I’m going for the pure pleasure of Marsland family-style storytelling. Next week I’ll write about gambling on a used car, and in the third installment, the misadventures of patients seeking that magic bullet, no matter the cost or outcome.

VERY RECENT PAST

Ominous sky, Ocean City, NJ

Almost every summer since I was developing in my mother‘s womb, the Marsland clan has gathered in Ocean City New, Jersey in one configuration or another. This is largely due to the generosity and hosting of my aunt Sue  and uncle Bruce. This last June I headed down to Ocean City in my recently acquired Volvo C30, while my wife stayed behind in Ithaca. Sometimes a girl just needs some alone time.

Trying to crack up Uncle Bruce with my chicken hat from Hoyt’s 5 and 10

My uncle Bruce has been interested in horses and racetrack betting since he was six years old, hanging out at the local race track near where he and my dad grew up in Southeastern Pennsylvania. He’ll usually come down to the shore for the first couple of days, get restless, and head up to Atlantic City for an afternoon and then head back to Delaware. He’ll come back down to the shore later in the week.

My cousin Danny, and second cousin Summer left mid-week so that the remaining Marslands were me, my cousin Lisa, my second cousin Emily and my aunt Sue.  While we were lounging on the beach soaking up the sun one afternoon Lisa had the idea that we should all go to Atlantic City that evening. I’ve only ever been to Atlantic City once, when we saw an Elvis impersonator with my aunt Sue and uncle Bruce, so I said “Why not?” 

Our general plan was that each of us would allocate twenty bucks for the slot machines and see how things went. I hung back and Emily went first. I was just taking it all in. The lights, the sounds, the characters, the cigarette smoke. Standing in the non-smoking section, I was getting more secondhand smoke than I remember since being a kid in some restaurant with the same absurd idea. All the smokers were seated over here and all the non-smokers were seated over there, as if we weren’t all sharing the same air.

Summer and Emily surfing a wall

Emily is a sassy young woman. I wouldn’t expect any different from the only child of a sassy mother and a spitfire father.  She comes by it naturally. With a couple pulls of the lever and a few pushes of buttons, she had already lost five bucks. “This sucks. Why does anyone do this? This is really dumb. I don’t know why we came here. I don’t like this.”  Next.

We wandered into a different section of slot machines and Sue took some turns. At least two times on our way over there, one of the security officers stopped us to ask Emily for ID. That’s what you get for looking so young and pretty. Sue didn’t lose quite as badly as Emily, but the net effect was a loss. Next.

We walked around a little bit until we settled into another section of slot machines and Lisa began to play. I stood behind her, fascinated. Although Emily‘s luck wasn’t great, she seemed to be good luck for Lisa, because the numbers kept on climbing. Before long, Lisa had converted $20 into nearly $90 in credit. 

Lisa then had her second good idea of the evening, which was that we go to the bar and get some drinks with her winnings. We took “our” receipts to the cashier and then moved on to the bar.

If you enjoy casinos, please don’t take any offense at my impression, but my experience was that it was all a bit of a freak show. The glazed look of people sitting in front of machines who appeared to have been there so long that there were cobwebs growing on them was disturbing. There was no end to the variety of human beings engaged in this activity. Our waitress looked like an anorexic Farrah Fawcett with Botox lips and frosted hair on stilettos. I think her name was Heather. Looking around, I felt like we were the obvious outliers, in our Lands End and L.L. Bean beach garb, but maybe in this bizarre Twilight Zone of the casino, it doesn’t matter—-come one, come all.

I’d never been to a casino per se, I had never played slot machine, and I thought I would go for three of three and order a drink I’ve never had before. So, I ordered a martini. Little did I know how complicated this would be. Having watched endless episodes of M*A*S*H, I thought that all people made martinis with gin and vermouth, and when the waitress-a-la-Farah-Fawcett asked me if I wanted vodka in my martini, I said “No thank you, can I please have a classic martini with gin?”  That garnered a pouty puff of Botox lips. The drinks came, including my martini in a classic martini glass with two enormous green olives on a toothpick. I took my first sip as the three ladies scrutinized me to see what my reaction was going to be. Not bad. Different. The olives were delicious.

We had a nice visit and enjoyed our drinks. $90 later, Lisa asked me “Are you going to play the slot machine Scott?” I guess I was. Not knowing casino etiquette, I asked if it would be OK to take our glasses back onto the floor as I was enjoying the look of my martini glass. Yes, I was getting into this. 

Now it was my turn. I sat down at the machine next to Lisa and bet “big.“.  At least the first five pulls of the lever brought wins and very quickly I was up to $70. Aunt Sue was standing next to me and that was when she said “You should decide now how much you’re willing to lose and when you’re going to stop.”  Wise words from experience, not so easy to follow. With about 10 more pulls, I had decreased my earnings by $20 and stopped.

Me, Lisa and Emily at the slots

Against her protest, I gave Lisa my net winnings and happily pocketed my $20 bill back in my wallet as the buzz of my Martini continued to slowly creep over me. An aside; you all know that there are families which fight over paying the bill and then there are families which FIGHT over paying the bill. Thankfully, in the Marsland family, you typically have to be sneaky about paying the bill in order to show your appreciation. I’ve learned to duck out to the bathroom and hand my debit card to the waitress.

Having had a nice time, feeling flush with our winnings, having enjoyed our very expensive alcohol, we called it an evening and headed to the parking garage. When we came to the parking attendant booth, he asked if any of us had a club card. Aunt Sue said yes she had one, but she hadn’t brought it with him. He gave us a $10,000 smile and said “You’re good!” and lifted the gate.  We all cheered! When you are a small -time once-in-a-lifetime gambler, saving $10 on parking can feel like five cherries just lined up on your slot machine. 

P.S.

Thanks to those of you who answered the reader survey re: a book group. Only subscribers with an email on file received it, as I’m not sure how else to ask you. The results can be seen at this link. It looks like Turtles All the Way Down, Vaccine Science and Myth, Edited by Zoey O'Toole and Mary Hollan will be first up. I’m reading it right now, and will propose a date and time in the next month.

P.S.S.

Give me an extra day and I will go wild! Lightning Bug now has two indexed lists of previous editions and their contents. Both are alphabetized, one by title, and a shorter one by clinical content. I plan to keep updating this periodically.

Ocean City, a family friendly town