Knaves and Beasts
Last night I had called the operator for an 8:30 wakeup call just so I would sleep better since I always get up well before then but if there’s no alarm I spend the whole night worrying that I overslept. The operator answered, “Mansion operator.” I asked for a wake-up call and she asked if I wanted the phone to ring just in this room or throughout the villa. I suggested throughout, as I wanted Pluto to wake up and cheer me on in the final round of the slot tournament.
I went down to play a little video poker before the tourney and got hoovered. Arnie, Gary, and Pluto met me at the tournament area and despaired as I didn’t hit much of anything for the entire first half. I came back a little in the stretch, though, cheered on by cute little Romanian slot attendant Ana, who asked if all of us good-looking men were in town for the convention. “Yes, the adult video convention,” I said with a straight face. “Have you seen my latest movie? I have a big part.”
I finished with about 65,000 points for the combined three rounds, not enough for the big prize but good enough for a consolation prize of $200, not bad considering the tournament was free. Casinos have very clever ways of making you feel like you’re winning. After the tourney I got hoovered some more on the five-play but then got dealt quad cowboys to start me on the path back to righteousness. Pluto was very excited about the dealt Cowboys and started asking me about the nicknames for the other ranks of cards, saying he liked all that gambling banter. I told him and soon he was doing a play-by-play on all my winning hands: “Knaves and Beasts. Ducks full of Storks. Four Bo Dereks.”
Arnie and Gary had an early flight so we went for lunch at Rainforest Café around 11:30. That restaurant was run completely by computer to the degree that the hostess could not assign us a table until they finished some program they were running on the console. At my suggestion the boys all had the excellent Mayan mixed grill. I was good and had a nice hot chicken-and-shrimp stir-fry that was just a tad too sweet for my taste. We rushed through the meal and so didn’t have time for dessert, which as a rule I don’t eat anyway. The bill came to $100 and the boys left a generous tip while I signed it into a fond memory.
We gave Arnie and Gary passionate belly hugs goodbye and then Pluto and I returned to the high-limit room to play a final hour of video poker before departure. I clawed my way back a little bit more thanks to several dealt Flushes and regular quads. My host came by and spoke my second-favorite six-word phrase—“I took care of your bill.”—and then Pluto and I went up to pack and reluctantly depart our villa. In addition to our luggage I toted a shopping bag with two bathrobes (an entry gift from the slot tournament) and the remains of the gift baskets brought every night to our villa.
We took the gold MGM limo to Ground Zero and took the tram to Terminal D where we checked in at the National Club and taught the hostess/agent/bartender to make Manhattans. We wrote and surfed and soon were on board the 757 to LAX in the butterscotch leather seats of 6A and B. I thought I had requested 1D and F but something must have happened. The flight was an all-too-short 38 minutes and we had no preflight drinks or hot towels but otherwise the service was great as usual with attractive young stewardesses. I had the cheese plate while Pluto practiced video poker. We landed 10 minutes early.
Hunnybear met us at the Red Carpet Club and we had a couple rounds of martinis before giving Steve passionate belly hugs goodbye and sending him off to Seattle. We hopped across the skybridge to Hunnybear’s waiting black Cabrio and scooted home.
The end.
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