Don’t Bet On It
Mr. Samuels and I are standing in the school auditorium as the buses empty their entrails. We haven’t said anything for a while and so I reach into my standard conversational questions. (This will definitely become a DodoEgg someday. Everyone should have a list of basic questions that scatters uncomfortable silence.)
“Do you bet Mr. Samuels?”
He makes a forced frown and rocks up on his toes. “Ah, I play poker a bit but I only use money I can afford to lose…you know, discretionary money.”
Most people respond this way. I usually reply one of two prepared ways…
A) “Of course, you’re insane if you view gambling money any other way.”
B) “Is there really such a thing as discretionary money when most people owe on a house or know people in need?’
I’m not really interested in broadening the conversation so I chose Option B.
Mr. Samuels nods and continues. “You know, I have a friend who learned to play craps. Well, he manages to win, like, 8,000 dollars the first night he plays. He thinks he’s some sort of idiot savant and runs out and quits his job so he can play craps full-time.”
“So, he’s more idiot than savant.”
More nodding. “Right. Soon he’s thirty thousand dollars in debt with no job. Then it occurs to him that he’s made a mistake.”
My eyes widened. “Thirty thousand, huh? You mean at the twenty thousand mark he was still thinking, ‘This will work out fine. I just need to stick with it?’ He turned a good thing like winning money into a bad situation. Strange.”
A bulge under one of the bus kid’s jackets indicated they were trying to smuggle in a weapon of mass destruction into the school again. Mr. Samuels left my side to go and confiscate it. It turned out to be just a tank of mustard gas…rookies…7th graders still have a hard time getting nuclear materials.
Addendum: I was driving by a casino last year and was amazed by the thick number of billboards that crowd the roadside. Anyway, most of them bragged about “95% payback on slots!” – as if this was a good thing!
In other words, we’ll change all the dollars you’ve got into ninety-five cents! What a service! Try the buffet!
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