AKA, the Mojave Desert. Bastards Tricked Me.

Recently I've become a prima donna at work. If there's a really cool installation, I'll demand to be put on it. If it sucks, I make excuses about all the other work I have to do. It's a great system because the guy who schedules trips is never in contact with my engineering manager, so he never really knows how busy I really am. Or more accurately, how busy I'm not. The Bullhead, Arizona installation was brought up, and I immediately said "No way." Then, the scheduler said the magic phrase, "There's a casino 10 minutes away."

Done and.....done.

I rented a Toyota Tundra, because they can survive meteors, and that evening Chris and I were RACING across the desert after work. The middle of the drive was intense to say the least. Chris was smoking pot while I was slaloming big rigs, driving anywhere between 90 and 100 mph because I had just eaten Taco Bell and the nearest exit was forty miles away. If we had been pulled over.... let's just say both of us would have been riding dirty.

It was actually cheaper to stay in a casino across the Colorado River in Laughlin, Nevada. What I didn't know, is that it was an Indian Casino. I haaaaate Indian Casinos, ever since I got completely ass-raped by one in Cherokee, North Carolina. I lost $600 in under five minutes playing their rigged video blackjack. I never would have even played except I had dragged two friends about 3 hours out of our way.

We checked in and I headed directly to the casino. I quickly figured out something I had never realized; It's a lot more fun to gamble the government's loan money than it is my own hard (laugh) earned money. I happened to have $50 in cash on me, so I quickly pissed it away and went to bed.

I thought Texas was bad; this was the Mojave Desert. It was two 12 hour days in 95 degrees with the sun beating down on us. Let's put it this way... my base tan is so good that I'm like Kevin Garnett tan, and won't ever need sun screen again.

The Mojave Desert isn't a lot of fun.

The only eventful thing about work was shopping for wire strippers at Ace Hardware, splitting up from Chris and shouting, "The strippers are over here" all the way across the store in front of a family with two young kids. After work and exhausted, I took a nap and woke up to the phone ringing. I pick up the phone. It's Chris.

"Hey. I'm going to smoke a bowl in my room; I'll meet you down in the casino." This job is pretty sweet.

From 9 PM until 4:30 AM, I went on one of my unstoppable hot streaks. My poison of choice is roulette, and it didn't hurt that there were five girls at the table. I took out $100 and started betting my patterns, and winning. Beer was free, but the waitress took forever. The guy sitting next to me, who owned a beef jerky stand, told me to give her a $5 tip. I did, and from then on this lady was at my beckon call. BUT, I wasn't allowed to double fist. I'd be half done and she'd say, "Here let me exchange that for a new one." So, obviously, I would chug the rest and exchange an empty for a new beer. This went on for seven hours.

So once I had doubled my money, talked to this one cute blonde girl at the roulette table, and gotten nice and saucy, I decided I would go beat up on her boyfriend in poker. For me, with winning money and getting drunk comes beer balls and beer muscles. Although I'd never played regular Texas Hold'em (as opposed to no limit or pot limit), I was flawless. I was throwing around my money, talking smack, and most importantly... winning. By about 1:00 I had sent four or five people scrambling for the ATM including: A cowgirl whose occupation was "breaking horses," her boyfriend who claimed he wrote songs for Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney (that one was my pleasure), a mediocre looking older woman with really nice fake tits I kept flirting with, and finally, that girl's boyfriend.

I went back to roulette, and again...I was on fire. Chris came to watch the show.

Chris: "Hey put one on double zero."

Me: "It never hits double zero."

I thought about it for a minute, put a chip on double zero, and waited for the ball to drop.

Dealer: "Double zero!"

Chris turned to me and asked why I listened to him when I had just said it never hits double zero. I smiled at him and explained: If it hit any other number, I would only lose a dollar. If it hit double zero and I hadn't bet on it, I would hear about it in the office, every day, for the rest of my career. It was insurance that paid off. I continued on the roll until 4:30 in the morning, with $470 in my pocket and that was only because I realized I was completely wasted and had to get up for work in 3.5 hours. Ironically enough, the fact that I was completely wasted was pointed out by our customer who, Thank God, had a great sense of humor. I have begun a run getting my money back from the loathsome Redskin, and I will not stop until I have won another $130.

In some chapters of my old fraternity, the Dream Girls help with rush events. In others: