Casino Night (a story)

So, funny story. I'm involved here on campus, and a little while back my housing area put on an event called Casino Night. (It teaches students the virtues of gambling!) They call it their biggest event of the year. (Bigger than when we helped the homeless or trick-or-treated with underprivileged kids!) You can see we have our priorities straight.

They went all out building giant dice out of boxes, hiring a DJ, and even fancy catering. They even had those little tarts with decorations on top that you can't figure out if you're supposed to eat or not.

Well, as a member of the AG, (Area Government. I'll tell you more about that later.) I was asked to help and, loath to wear the uniform of a server, (mini dress and stilettos!) I chose to be a dealer. I could deal Texas Hold 'Em, or Blackjack. I had no idea how to play either, so I chose Blackjack--the simpler of the two--and my AG president taught me the night before how to play and deal it.

Just deal everyone two cards--one face down, one face up, and try to get as close as you can to 21 by adding the numbers on your cards without busting by going over 21. The dealer (me) then asks if anyone wants an extra card and goes around the table until everyone is satisfied with their number of cards.

The way they had me play it, I had to stop as soon as I got to or above 17, and everyone was playing against me only. My number beats their number, and I get the chips they bet. They beat mine, and I pay them however many chips they bet. In the event of a tie, I still lose and I pay them. Once we promote gambling in the lives of our students, you can see how we prepare them well for the real world with our realistic betting and dealers who learned the game the night before.

I'm sure the day of the event dawned nice and clear, but I didn't see it. I was in bed, groaning. Every inch of my body was in pain. Aching, aching pain. I missed both of my classes that day, and I barely managed to drag myself out of bed by noon. I moved rather like the zombies who were shuffling around campus that week (more on that later too). I would find out soon that I was only just beginning one delirious week of Flu.

I'm pretty sure my shower took me three hours. I don't remember really eating much. I would have just stayed in bed all day, but there was one thing that I couldn't miss. It's the biggest event of the year, people! So I dressed myself up, and left half an hour before it began looking more like a mob boss than a dealer in my pinstripes, jacket, dress shirt and tie, all capped off with a Fedora. I didn't really care in my state. I had time to do my makeup well though. My roommates said I looked hot. I trust them. I think.

I didn't protest when they gave me thirty poker chips on the way in the door. I just stuck them in my pocket with the other ten or so I'd collected in my travels. There was no way I'd use them, but it might be entertaining to throw them at people and see their eyes light up as I pelt them with hard little bits of plastic.

I had half an hour until my shift to party, during which I piled my plate with shrimp, ate a tart or two, (yes, the decorations were edible.) and joined the hip hop club in break dancing which they all agreed was highly impressive in my high heels. I ignored, and almost managed to forget about, being sick.

I was going to enjoy my allotted thirty minutes of the event of the year, dang it.

When I took over my table, there were already six guys there. I sat down with a flourish, shuffled the deck, and promptly tried to deal their first card face up. Fail. It took me a few minutes to get into the rhythm of it, but after an hour I felt like I was dealing in Vegas like a pro. 

Those six guys stayed at my table for the ENTIRE night. Some of them were doing pretty well by the time I got there, and confident in their abilities to randomly get good cards, were betting pretty high. I didn't mind until I noticed that a couple of them were betting strange numbers of chips, the more timid of the two betting numbers like 37 and the hot, ripped football player huge amounts like 126.

I soon realized why when they lost for the first time with me, and as I asked for their chips, the numbers mysteriously changed. I'll admit, my memory might have been faulty, but it kept happening and I pride myself on being able to remember numbers rather well. I began making sure everyone was putting their chips in stacks of five or ten so I could keep track better.

Football Player especially loved to leave his chips in a big, impossible-to-count pile, and complained about the new rule because he just has SO many chips to stack.

I told him I could take a few off of his hands to make the task easier, but he declined.

Throughout the night, I kept a closer eye on those two, but I didn't neglect my other players. When one slowly but steadily lost it all, I gave him ten more chips from my personal stash. I was too busy to bombard anyone with them anyway. In the beginning before I got the hang of it, I often lost as well. My whole table agreed that I was the coolest dealer ever for these.

That soon changed though. Football Player was either luckier or more skilled than Timid, so Timid's chip counts changed more often. After a few rounds of this, I looked him in the eyes and told him how strange it was that his chip counts changed... Embarrassed and chastised, he backed off. My table wasn't quite as boisterous for a bit after.

Football Player was more bold. Despite the episode with Timid, he continued. I became frustrated, but he often won so it didn't come up much. Then, based off of the skewed perspective the school gave him, he decided his luck was unbeatable and bet almost three hundred chips. I got a perfect 21 that round and crushed everyone. His number changed rather drastically. (It wasn't 289, it was only 89! I was going to put out 91, but then I took two off, that must be where you got that 2.) It didn't help that he had a slight accent and it wasn't always easy to hear him in the over-crowded room.

At this point, I had been trying to get up my courage to ask him to leave my table for cheating. I confronted him, and he adamantly denied it.  I tried to argue with him for a few seconds but I didn't have the energy in my weakened state, so I let it stand and in frustration I dealt another round while I thought about what to do. I decided that if there was one more offense I would make him leave.

He lost that round. He handed his chips in, and then I told him if he cheated one more time I would have to ask him to leave. I counted the chips in the last stack he had handed me, and there were nine rather than ten. Perhaps it wasn't fair of me to warn him and then count, but I'd had enough of him and I just wanted him gone. In a resounding voice of fate, I intoned that there were only nine where there should have been ten, and I asked him to leave. He refused. I asked him again, and he refused again, claiming that he had simply miscounted and he hadn't been cheating.

In blatant anger now, I dealt another round to keep it fair to the other guys at my table while trying to figure out how to get security over to me. As we finished the round, I was relieved to see that the AG president (my supervisor) was nearby and I called him over. I spoke to him privately and explained the situation saying that all I wanted was for him to leave my table and that I would be content to leave it at that.

He thanked me and left without another word.

So, we played another round.

A minute or two later, security arrived, and they escorted a very pissed off Football Player away from my table.

We played another round before the AG president came back and reported that they had taken his vast amounts of chips and made him leave the whole event. I was surprised at their totality, and felt a little guilty that I had cost him the rest of the party as well in my efforts to be rid of the difficulty of painstakingly counting his hundreds of chips.

He was cheating though.

We finished out the night with no more mishaps. After they threw Football Player out, Timid stopped putting in hard to remember amounts, and mostly stuck to betting 50 every time. I'll admit, it made it so much easier on me. The other players were subdued by the scene, and for the rest of the night, even Timid was a perfect angel.

At the end of the night, I found out that Timid was Football Player's roommate. Awkward. I told him to apologize to Football Player for me and to tell him that I hadn't meant to get him thrown out for which I felt bad, but that there wouldn't have been a problem if he had never cheated. He grudgingly said he would.

As I walked home, I thought more about how the night had turned out. I felt bad for Football Player, but even more than that, I was afraid that Football Player would come looking for me and try to exact his revenge. He seemed like the type who would do that. I worried for a bit, but then figured that I looked quite different in my mobster outfit and comforted myself with the knowledge that Football player did not know where I lived or, indeed, my name.

At home I relaxed while I related the story to Jasmine (as I call her here because of her beautiful long thick black hair.) and Beauty, (who is probably the most beautiful girl in the world) a couple of my roommates. They were sympathetic as they could see the effect it was having on me, but neither of them thought it was a very big deal. When there was a knock at the door, neither of them made a move to answer it. I thought that was odd since I was obviously unwell, but I got up to answer it.

I opened the door.

And stood in shock with absolutely no expression crossing my face.

I thought for a moment I must be in a movie or something.

.....

It was Football Player, and a couple of his friends. 

It had hardly been five minutes since I got home! Did they follow me somehow?! But I could see from how Football Player and his one friend were standing that he had just been animatedly telling the same story I'd been rehearsing moments before, and he was just as shocked as I was to see the main character of the story on the other side of the door. The one in front, oblivious to this silent exchange, asked if Jasmine was home. I nodded and, my stunned stone face expression still frozen in place, I stood back to let them all in.

Later, I thought my roommates must have set me up, but there's no way they could have known who he was. I hadn't even known his name or anything when I was telling the story.

Crazy how things happen that way.

There was some sort of conversation between us where his friend tried to convince me Football Player would never cheat, then that if he had been, why couldn't I just be cool and let it go? It's no big deal and all sorts of stuff like that. I responded with much emotion about how important honesty is to me, how it hard it was, why he would do that to me when I had never done anything to him, and that my hysterical crying were entirely caused by the fact that I was coming down with the Flu. But at least through this I found that Football Player had no interest in cornering me in a dark alley somewhere.

Still, it was a pretty awkward situation.

Beauty laughed. Because, without meaning to, that's what she does in awkward situations .

I went to bed where I continued crying for no apparent reason. My roommates came in a little later and I told Beauty I didn't mind that she had laughed because I understand about her and awkward situations. I found out some more interesting information from them too--

....

Football Player lives in my building.

On our floor, down the hall where he shares a room with Timid.

How odd.

I had never known of his existence until that insane Wednesday. Funny how you can live right next to people for months and never know who they are.

Now, why is this relevant to my life now? Well, ever since this incident, he's gotten quite close to Jasmine. He's pretty much dating her now, and I see him almost every day. Funny how these things work out. Today, I offered him some of the pie I made, he dared to try it, and he said he loved it. Hopefully that means that we're cool.

Still, weird.