Sunday, February 06, 2005
My Date with The Donald
My brother decided to take my parents to the casino for the day and asked that I come along. So, with my husband's blessing, I left my men and the cat for a day in Atlantic City. It's been about 5 years since I had been there; last time, as a forced work trip. I am not a gambler. The only thing I do is play slots. The nickel machines. You see the problem is that I constantly convert any winnings into equivalent yards of fabric. "Hmmm...I'm up $10...I could buy 2 yards of fabric with that." And so it goes all day long.
The casino is like another world. Full of all kinds of people, all there for the sole purpose of risking money in the effort to make more. I sat next to my dad for most of the day, wandering off from time to time. They had some really interesting tapestries on the wall. They looked old...covered in beads, weird looking sequins, and embroidery. The carpets were a wonderful design...would make a great quilt, I thought. And then there's the people. Waves of humanity arriving by the busload all day long. The funniest thing is the club card...Club Donald...where you hand a lady at the desk your drivers license and she gives you a card with your name printed on it. You stick that card in the slot machine. It keeps a tally of what you do (and lose) and then the Donald sends you valuable premiums to coax you back in the future. Apparently all of the casinos have these cards with a little hole already bored into the corner. In the casino culture, you stick all of these cards on a lanyard or chain and wear them. So an old lady sits down next to me, and reaches for her Donald card on a chain around her neck and sticks it in the slot on the machine, with the chain stretched from her neck to the slot. She looked like she was going to hang herself.
As it ended up, Dad won $20, Mom won $200, brother stayed even, and me....I lost 6 yards of fabric.
The casino is like another world. Full of all kinds of people, all there for the sole purpose of risking money in the effort to make more. I sat next to my dad for most of the day, wandering off from time to time. They had some really interesting tapestries on the wall. They looked old...covered in beads, weird looking sequins, and embroidery. The carpets were a wonderful design...would make a great quilt, I thought. And then there's the people. Waves of humanity arriving by the busload all day long. The funniest thing is the club card...Club Donald...where you hand a lady at the desk your drivers license and she gives you a card with your name printed on it. You stick that card in the slot machine. It keeps a tally of what you do (and lose) and then the Donald sends you valuable premiums to coax you back in the future. Apparently all of the casinos have these cards with a little hole already bored into the corner. In the casino culture, you stick all of these cards on a lanyard or chain and wear them. So an old lady sits down next to me, and reaches for her Donald card on a chain around her neck and sticks it in the slot on the machine, with the chain stretched from her neck to the slot. She looked like she was going to hang herself.
As it ended up, Dad won $20, Mom won $200, brother stayed even, and me....I lost 6 yards of fabric.
