Jackpot
I’m pretty much the queen of a cheap date.
One of our more recent past-times has been to catch one of the free shows at a local casino. Except for the price of gas, it’s a fun night for only a few bucks.
What’s not to love?
There’s a free show. We like to make up stories about the people we see. We bring the rubber chicken and you can drink all the free soda you can manage.
Bonus if someone in our group accidentally wins some money.
We’ve gone to about four free shows in the last year.
I like the penny slots. We like to make lots of noise and act like we’ve just won the California Lottery when we’ve made a “jackpot” of 35 cents.
I finally found my comfortable spot in the maze of flashing lights, tipsy-couples and free-flowing soda dispensers.
I found a nickel roulette machine.
The thing about this machine is that literally I could play for hours. Each time one of my friends circled back around and found me at that familiar perch, I would invariably be 50 cents up or 50 cents down.
I hogged that machines for hours as my friends circled around, coming to report if they had won $15 dollars or lost $5.
They would laugh that I was still faithfully seated, playing again and again, never winning, but never losing.
Last time we went to that particular casino, I was shocked that the machine was gone.
I made Tommy scour the casino floor on a search for the machine, even asking employees who claimed to not know what I was talking about.
Then it dawned on me — they took out the machine because it wasn’t making enough money.
How dare they, I thought with indignation. How dare they not want me to sit there for hours neither losing nor winning? Don’t they want me to come see their free show, walk around with my rubber chicken, watch the delightful house band (for free) and suck down so much diet soda I felt like my veins were going to burst?
Those ingrates.
BONUS INSIDE SCOOP: Feather Falls Casino is hosting “Tainted Love” Feb. 8. We’ve been to see this band before and they’re goofy, but a lot of good, free fun. They play ’80s tunes.