To Do

Completed February 2008

I’m pretty sure I added this item to my list while I was in college, and playing quarter slots seemed like an extravagance I could hardly afford. I was living in Los Angeles at the time, and several times a year, I would travel to Las Vegas or Laughlin to gamble for a weekend, or maybe even a day, and see what kind of fortune we’d have. We spent most of our time at the nickel slots, moving to the penny slots when our cups of change were running low, and only after someone had won a jackpot did we venture to the quarter slots to play for a bit. We’d usually go on a weeknight and hotel rooms could be had for as little as $11 a night. Three or four of us would crowd into a room and we’d stuff ourselves silly at cheap buffets and sip at our complimentary watered down drinks while we gambled.

Now it’s quite a different story. It’s almost nothing for me to buy $100 in chips at a roulette table just to sit and play for awhile. Sometimes I win and sometimes I lose, but I nearly always have fun, and that’s what matters, I guess. I’m not under some delusion that my lucky number will come up and I’ll win enough money to buy my dream home and quit my job. And I’ve definitely played $20 in the slots.