A Staggering Walk Of Heart-Wrenching Inconvenience

Last Thursday and Friday, Hick and I met up with The Pony for CasinoPalooza 5. My sister the ex-mayor's wife and the ex-mayor also met us in northeastern Oklahoma, after a day visiting in the area of Pawhuska to see The Pioneer Woman's mercantile store, and tour a Frank Lloyd Wright museum. Nothing much exciting happened this trip. Not on the casino floor, anyway. Though I did have a couple of interesting bathroom encounters...

Friday night, I was having a really good time all by myself after everyone else went to bed. My gambling purse was full (well, full enough) of money that I'd brought for the specific purpose of possibly losing. The fun is in the trying. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Usually I win, then lose it back! I was going to stick around and play for a little while. I didn't ride five hours with ol' sweaving Hick to sleep for eight hours.

I stay up late anyway, you know, until 3:00 or 4:00 most nights. The crowd had thinned out in the casino, and I could get on most slots that I wanted to play. I had to stop every couple hours for a bathroom break. Around 1:30, I decided to go to the restrooms up front, rather than encounter the non-working workers at the one along the back wall again. They gave me the stinkeye when I was in there earlier. Like once they clean, nobody should sully their immaculate toilet seats, EVER.

The front-wall restrooms at Downstream Casino are like a big corridor. You can go in either end, walk down the long row of stalls on each wall, and out the door at the other end. The handicap stalls are in the middle of the rows. I need those handrails to get up, you know. I don't want the giant stalls with room for a walker or wheelchair. Just the rails. That's where I was headed.

In fact, I was almost there, walking down the tile aisle, when it happened. My left foot caught on the tile. I guess I had really grippy soles after coming off the casino carpet. Or the cleaning crew had done an excellent mopping job. Let the record show that I've had problems with my left ankle ever since Genius herded us over blacktop hill and dale taking college graduation pictures two years ago. Had I known of the impending workout, I would have worn my driveway-walking shoes, with more cushioning and support. I self-diagnosed it as Posterior Tibial Tendinitis. It hurts me off and on. This night, it was hurting from all the walking we'd done in 7 casinos.

Anyhoo... I was reaching out to the handle to open a stall door when it happened. DANG! It hurt so bad! That jarring shock as my foot stopped, but my ankle and leg kept going! I nearly fell. I grabbed that stall handle like my life depended on it. Somebody was in there! I bet I scared her half to death! I put my hand on the next stall door to steady myself. The pain was radiating in waves, in the arch and inner side of my ankle. Pain so bad that I felt like I might vomit. Or black out. Terrible pain.

I hobbled across the aisle to another of those railed handicap stalls, and eased myself onto the toilet. What a predicament. I was at the opposite corner of the large casino from the exit to the elevator area to get up to my room. Everyone else was sleeping. I didn't know if I could walk back to the room! I know. Val People Problems.

After about five minutes to regain my composure, I hoisted myself up by the double rails. I would have sat there longer, trying to recuperate, but another incident happened, which you will learn about tomorrow. I left the stall and hobbled along the tile. My ankle didn't want to work right. It was like a Frankenstein foot, not bending as I took a step. Like a peg leg to balance on while hopping my right leg forward. Did I mention that I have trouble with the knee of my right leg? It's the one that hasn't been operated on twice. So I was ambulating on a bad left ankle, and a bad right knee. I'm pretty sure people thought I was faking to justify using that handicap stall. It's not like I had a walker or a scooter or a blue handicap placard around my neck.

Whew! I was breaking out in a cold sweat. I washed my hands and took time drying them. Hobbled out the door that put me in the middle of the front wall of that casino. Have you ever noticed that casinos don't have straight walkways? They want you to weave in and out around slots and table games, perhaps getting an urge to gamble. Sheesh! I grabbed the back of every empty chair I passed, to steady myself. Okay. I saw a machine I wanted to play. I could sit down for a few minutes and rest. The guy at the one next to it gave me a long stare. EFF HIM! I plopped down and put my money in. Only I didn't. It would take any bills! It was broken! Or full of money. So I had to continue on my journey of 10,000 miles back to my room.

I'm pretty sure more than one member of the security staff was watching me. They probably thought I was staggering drunk. You're always on camera in a casino. Did you know that? I could imagine them following my progress, unless they nodded off from boredom. I had to stop at many machines to rest.

Between the ankle and the knee, I didn't know which leg to favor in my limp. I was like George Costanza at Play Now, but without a cane. If I had one, I never would have used it to trip anyone!

It was a little after 3:00 a.m. when I started my final trek to the casino exit. I stopped at the cash-out machine. Nodded to the man standing at a podium at the entrance/exit. Hobbled to the gift shop and stopped to peer though the windows. Mainly to rest. Then on to the elevators, and up to the 6th floor. Still on camera, of course, as I went through the corridor maze to my room.

I figure I wasted about an hour of valuable gambling time with all that slow-walking.