The $8.80 mirage

My last two trips to the WinStar World Casino in Thackerville, Oklahoma have not been fun.
On the first trip, I got food poisoning and was throwing up for about 24 hours. The illness also caused me to miss half of my fantasy football draft, and when I finally felt better and got around to checking my team, I was delighted to see that the computer had drafted me two kickers, two third-string running backs, a backup running back and an extra tight end.
I then proceeded to lose at the poker also.
After a couple weeks away from that dust toilet, I returned to the WinStar World Casino in Thackerville, Oklahoma this weekend. The short version of my poker experience there is that I was winning for the first 32 hours (over 3 days) I was playing there and managed to lose all of that profit and a little more in the final 20 minutes of my stay.
The big, final pot involved a James Bond-esque four-way all in. Except my opponents weren't international villains dressed in tuxedos. I was up against a drunk guy who announced he was going all in without looking and then did exactly that, a guy who looked at his hand extensively and still didn't know what he had when the hand was over, and a guy who announced, "F*** it, let's gamble" before moving his chips in.
So we get all in for a lot of money and the dealer is not really sure what is going on. Because we each had different amounts of chips when the hand started, there are three separate pots, and the poor girl is a bit flummoxed. She's not being helped by the players, one of which keeps insisting that he has three of a kind when in fact he has a stronger hand than that (a straight), and the other two of which think they have lost but have actually won at least one of the pots in question.
The only real loser is me, who went from first place to last place in the hand in about 5 seconds and is for some reason trying to help the dealer sort out who wins which pots and how big those pots are.  Finally I snap to it and say, "What am I doing? I'm the only one who lost this stupid hand. I'm out of chips, I'm not buying any more and I'm going home. Good luck figuring this out, I'll see you guys later."
Not wanting to leave empty-handed, I walk over to the poker kitchen to redeem my $8.80 comp before I go. I'm not really hungry, but they have snacks like trail mix and peanut butter crackers that I could buy and put in my cute Thunder purse for next time.
So I go to the counter and there is one gentleman ahead of me. He is briefly arguing with the cashier about something but after 30 seconds he is gone and I step up. Except the cashier lady is now gone. I wait for a minute and nobody comes up. The lady looks right at me, doesn't say a word, walks out of the door right next to me and leaves without acknowledging me. There are a couple cooks in the back but that's it. Finally, after a couple of minutes my blood is boiling a little and I decide I'm not waiting any longer. But after walking away I decide I'm going to spend that $8.80 even if I just throw the food in the trash for spite.
So I walk out of the poker room to the nearest restaurant -- which just happens to be the hot dog and hamburger place I got food poisoning from. They also have shakes so I decide I'll just get a shake for the road. Until I get over there and see that there are about 50 people in line for this joint. I'm definitely not standing in line for an hour for a shake that may or may not give me food poisoning, so I walk to the next-nearest restaurant, Dairy Queen.
There's a much shorter line there, and after waiting for 5 minutes I'm up. I order the Oreo Cheesecake Blizzard, which sounds like it might have just enough calories in it to make me temporarily forget my economic troubles. I give the lady my WinStar Rewards card, which she can't seem to get to work. After consulting with her manager, I am informed that although I do in fact have an $8.80 comp on my card, they can't get it to work. They know the comp is on there, but they can't redeem it so I'll just have to pay. Will that be cash or credit? I asked if they are accepting middle fingers as payment. (Of course I didn't actually do that. But I was only interested in 1100 empty calories if they were free, as my desire to give away money had abruptly come to a halt minutes earlier. So I left Dairy Queen Blizzard-less.)
Depressed by my ability to give away a lot of money and not redeem $8.80, I left WinStar World Casino. The ole Honda made record time coming home, where my awesome wife had homemade cookies waiting for me and I got to see my three precious children.
I just spent 30 seconds trying to come up with a corny tie-in ending but you get the picture. God is good and "My Lucky Life" doesn't even begin to describe it. We'll get em next time, at least for $8.80.