The Ring Lady and the Beater

Of course no casino trip is complete without a weirdo. Hick got one this time. Two, actually. He was sitting back at the carousel of former Wonder Women games, and a lady came up and asked if there was a ticket in his machine. Heh, heh! Déjà vu for Hick! He said,

“No. But there was two beer cans sitting here on it!”

She said, “Those were mine. This is the last place I had my ticket.”

Hick told her too bad. HE didn’t see her ticket. She wandered off then, because they opened up the music venue for some concert of a never-heard-of, $40-ticket band. Hick said all the people waiting were milling around on that side of the casino, drinking, waiting to be let in. I guess maybe they should have picked a designated ticket-watcher.

But she’s not the real weirdo! Another lady came over to Hick, and stuck a ring under his nose. A man’s ring. He couldn’t describe it. Just said a heavy ring that you could tell was a man’s. The lady said it was worth a lot, and what would he give her for it. Hick said, “Nothing. I don’t want that ring.” Riverwinds is really a nice casino, but they seem to have some riff-raffy kind of people there, especially on weekends.

I was playing my Dreams of Egypt slot on Friday night when my weirdo magnet got activated. I hit a jackpot here, which paid me a progressive bonus worth $76.87. I had NO MONEY in the slot at that time. I'd just hit the SAVER feature, which will give you another spin if you don't have enough to pay for a minimum bet. It's a dial that shows your chances. You can risk your change on a spin, rather than cashing out a ticket worth a few cents.

A guy three machines to my left was pounding on his slot. Not like he was mad. Like when people tap certain parts, like to make a bonus symbol land there. He wasn’t just pounding. He was beating the bejeebers out of that thing! It was actually making me nervous. Not because he was an angry pounder. He just seemed WAY overenthusiastic. I thought he was going to break it. And it was drawing unwanted attention to my area. People who could see me through the cracks over to the next row kept staring, thinking it was ME! His slot was so tall that they couldn’t see him. I could hear the plastic rattle when he hit it. Like the front cover might be coming off.

Finally, that Beater got up and left. Immediately, there was a housekeeping person there, with a little trash cart for dumping ash trays and picking up cups. They’re all over the place, so I didn’t think anything about it. Then another housekeeping guy came up. Then a lady who seemed pretty official, talking on a radio about the number of the machine. THEN a couple of security guys. I don’t know if someone told on the Beater, or if the housekeepers radioed it in, or if security had been watching him on camera. Anyhoo…a few minutes later, there was an announcement for some man’s name to go to the northeast entrance. I bet they found out his name from his player’s card, and were planning to toss him out on his ear. At least that’s what I hope happened. Otherwise, it was a waste of a good employee-gathering by that slot.

At least there were no coughers or smokers near me this trip.