Summer's Final Fling

HH and I went to Harrah's casino today. My Hillbilly Mama came
out to our house to watch the kids. Watch them try to kill each
other. That's how it usually goes. She said they were good today.
I didn't see any dried tear tracks on her cheeks, so I assume she
was being truthful.

The casino took our money. Imagine that! Not too much of it,
though. We got there around 8:30 a.m. First off, I fed a Hot
Pepper quarter slot machine $20, and it gave me $40. Good
deal. After that, the video poker machines refused to pay me
today. I tried a little Triple Cherry for $1, with moderate
success.

After lunch, the place was crawling with old people. Older than
me and HH! And I do mean crawling. HH told me I should
play some nickel machines. I had walked past them earlier,
thinking I would come back. Mistake. After the truckload of
old folks arrived, it was packed. I wrestled my way onto a
stool at a Wild Cherry machine. It wasn't too hard. The old
people who didn't have oxygen tanks were frail, and they don't
put up a very good fight when they insist on hanging onto their
cigarettes.

I played that nickel Wild Cherry for 90 minutes on $20. I was
up, I was down, I was switching denominations like crazy, trying
to win on a dime instead of a nickel bet! I was a maniac, I tell
you. Until I played that $20 down to nothing, and went to put
in more money. That freakin' machine said 'Changer Off. Call
Attendant'. The attendant never responded to my call light.
What's up with that? At Ameristar, they appear if you so much
as look over your shoulder. It wasn't telling me I'd reached my
limit for the session. HH's card wouldn't make it work, either.

I'd had enough of that waiting around business. We only had
30 minutes left before we had to rescue my Hillbilly Mama from
our evil spawn. I traipsed around some progressive something-
or-other machines. I tried a few plays on some $.50 games.
With 3 minutes left, and $8 left on my machine, I tried to call
HH on his cell phone to tell him where to find me. No signal.
I closed up my phone, pressed the Play Max Credits button...
and won $80. It hit some bar thingy, and two (TWO) round
thingies that had 4X on them. WooHoo! That made my day.
I'm all about the drama. HH had walked up right as it hit. It
still didn't quite bring me back to even for the day, but I lost
less than HH. So that's a winner in my book.

We had a good time. The kids had a good time. And my Hillbilly
Mama told me she had a good time. Life is good at the Mansion.

This was our final fling before the back-to-school chaos.