Hard Luck at the Hard Rock

Last weekend a few of us went to the Hard Rock Casino in Tulsa for the Oklahoma State Poker Championships.
I rode with my buddy Jason, and we had quite the time getting checked into our room.
We walked up to the front desk and not a soul was in line. There was one lady behind the counter, and she was on the phone.
Not once did she look up from the phone, even after one, two and three minutes passed. Jason and I exchanged a few irritated glances but we were patient for quite awhile. I was sure we would at least get a courtesy, "I'll be with you in a minute." In fairness, it was obvious that whoever was on the phone was wearing her out pretty good, and it was obviously a customer calling, as opposed to her boyfriend or whatever.
Soon another lady walked up to the counter, but when she did she picked up her phone and started talking to another customer. I was getting pretty annoyed, so I made sure not to use my inside voice when I said, "I guess maybe I should call in." 
That was ignored, and after another minute the second lady got off the phone. But instead of acknowledging us, she picked up her walky-talky and started chatting it up. After a couple of exchanges on the walky-talky, she comes back over and says, "How are you guys doing tonight?"
I said, "Pretty good, we're about ready to check in," but by the time I got past the "pretty good" she had already turned her back and walked out the door.
I'm sure my face was pretty red by this point, and I remember sharing some sort of sarcastic comment with Jason.
Then the lady walked back into the vicinity and I loudly mentioned that it would be great to get checked in. About this time the first lady got off the phone, apologized, and helped us get checked in.
The whole check-in experience was just a bad start to a bad weekend, as I left with less money than I came with. It seems like a simple, "I'm sorry, I'll be with you in a minute," would have been the correct play. After all, as George Costanza would say, "We're living in a society here!!!"

Maple syrup, anyone?

Addison had quite the field day on Super Bowl Sunday.
When I woke up, I came downstairs to find Missy cleaning up a massive amount of Hungry Jack maple syrup that was all over the dining room.
Evidently, while I was asleep and Missy was tending to her grandpa in the other room, Addie snagged an unopened bottle of the syrup from out of the pantry. She then opened the top and tore off that little safety tab before really going to work.
Her big Christmas present this year was a little play kitchen with a sink, some drawers, a microwave, a fridge, etc. Well, she poured the entire bottle of syrup all over her kitchen, mainly in the sink, which was overflowing with syrup. That little sink alone probably held 6 or 8 oz., and the rest of it went on the floor all around the kitchen.
So I rush to help Missy clean it up, and after a minute I call out for Addie because she's in the living room. She didn't immediately answer so I got up and went in there. Now, Addie's clothes had syrup all over them so Missy had taken them off. Addie was wearing only her diaper.
I went to the living room to find Addie's chest, belly and right leg marked up and down with a dry erase marker. We have a dry erase board over by grandpa's chair so we can write on it and tell him where we are going if we happen to leave for a minute so he won't panic. Addison had never even tried to go grab that marker before, even though she loves coloring, but this time she went to town with it.
When she saw me, she said, "Daddy! Draw tummy! Draw leg!"
We've got a picture on Missy's cellphone, so if you want it just let us know.

Demanding Beggar

Something came up the other day that reminded me of an incident several years ago in Lawton.
Back in the day, my schedule used to look something like this: Go to work at the newspaper at 4 p.m., work til midnight, go the casino and play poker til 3 a.m., go to Whataburger with my friend Spike (big winner had to pay), go to bed. I still don't know how I gained 25 pounds down there.
Anyway, one night we go in there and the restaurant was empty except for one dude. As soon as we walk in, he comes up and asks for $20 to take a cab to the other side of town.
I said, "I can't do that for you, but I'll buy your dinner. Order whatever you want."
Without hesitating, he stepped up and to the counter. "I'll have the double cheeseburger meal, supersized, with Coke, and a large strawberry shake on the side."
When our orders came out, Spike and I went and sat down, and this dude went to the polar opposite end of the restaurant, sat down and ate his meal.
As we were about to leave, he comes back over and again asks me for $20. I said, "Sorry man, I did what I could for you."
He shook his finger at me and said, "I know what you're doing. You're pre-judging me because I'm black. You think I'm going to go buy drugs or booze. You need to quit pre-judging me."
I said, "I'm not judging you. I gave you what I could." But I was thinking, "How can you be giving ME this speech when Spike is standing right there?" Seems like Spike deserved to get solicited before he called me a racist, since I bought him $8 worth of Whataburger.
But this guy wasn't through with me yet.
"Yes, I know what you're thinking! You're prejudging me!"
I found the nearest door and got the heck out of there. As I reached for the door, I heard this guy ask Spike for money. Spike said, "I think I have 50 cents or a dollar in my pocket," and pulled it out and gave it to the guy.
"Appreciate you man," he told Spike. "God bless."