Even Steven Is Always Riding Shotgun With Val

We were headed to the casino on Tuesday morning. Planning to leave home at 9:30 with The Pony meeting us to ride along. At the time he was supposed to start out here, I got a text. The Pony could not find his ID! You may recall that we made another casino trip, when The Pony only discovered the missing ID as we got out of the car to go in. Made it inside on a fluke, AND hit a jackpot that day, which required ID to collect.

Anyhoo, The Pony last remembered actually holding and looking at his billfold about 10 days previous, when he was checking his insurance number for a prescription. He did that within his postal vehicle. Then stashed his bag with the billfold in it behind the seat. He never carries his billfold on him when he's doing a route. Problem was, since that day, The Pony had worked multiple routes, and driven FIVE different vehicles.

To be sure, The Pony searched his house three times. Everywhere, including drawers and refrigerator and washer/dryer. Took out all the cushions of the couch and moved it to look under. Searched under the bed, and between the mattress and the wall. Found a pair of glasses he'd lost! But no billfold. Which contained his driver's license, credit card, two debit cards, insurance cards, and social security card. No money, though. 

I tried to talk him off the ledge. "You'll just have to get another license. They'll print it from the picture they already have. Otherwise people with bad pictures would be constantly 'losing' their license! The license office is on the way out here. So just stop by and they'll give you a temporary license, until they mail the replacement."

The Pony agreed, but said he was running by work first. Such an advantage, living only a few blocks away. He told the manager the situation. Searched three of the vehicles he had been in, without success. Another was in the shop for repairs. And the last one was out on a route with a person The Pony is not on speaking terms with. (No details on this situation at this time.)

Anyhoo... The Pony had checked his accounts, and they had not been accessed. So the situation was pretty much under control. He got a temporary license, and we went to the casino. On the drive, I said that if that one person had found his billfold, he probably wasn't getting anything back. It was most likely tossed into a dumpster somewhere along the route. The Pony said that would be the BEST possible scenario!

We were only an hour late leaving home. We still had plenty of time for gambling, and eating lunch. More on lunch tomorrow...

Here's one of my jackpots:

This was on the Wild LepreCoin game on a Wonder 4 Tall Fortunes slot machine. I was playing four games at once. As you can see, I was on my last spin, being down to only 5 cents credit left. The top game hit a lot of leprechauns. Here it's adding up my jackpot. 

Below is the total I finished with. I had hoped for more, but I guess the 50 cents that was actually bet on that one game limited my success!

So it paid me $85. You might think that made me a winner... Au contraire! Being Val, I did not pocket my win and run out the door! I was there to PLAY, by cracky! Not leave my money in my purse. I had some more successes. And even more not-successes. I left about 1/3 of my casino bankroll in those no-armed bandits!

Hick finished $40 ahead, and The Pony walked out with a $30 profit. I was content to be the biggest loser. Can't win if you don't play. Can't win if you DO play, sometimes! Like this day for me.

Anyhoo... I was not at all sad. I was happy for Hick and The Pony.

The next day, I went to town for scratchers as usual. Found a penny in Orb K! Which turned out to be a sign of good luck!

That's the $10 Triple Red 777 ticket again! Winning me $177! I had the triple symbol.

And also matched one number. So that made $150 plus $27, for a total of $177. Thanks, Even Steven. That more than covered my casino losses. Not exactly EVEN, but since I was on the positive uneven side, we won't quibble over exactness with Even Steven.

We all had a good time, despite the rocky start to our casino excursion.

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UPDATE:

I had already written this and set it to publish, but on Saturday night at 5:20, The Pony sent me a text:

"Coworker just found and brought me my billfold. I was woken up from a nap by her calling. She'd missed it when I asked her to look before, and found it wedged down in behind the seat."

"GREAT! Did you cancel anything yet?"

"I didn't. I'd gone in and gotten the social security paperwork for a new card, but not turned it in yet. Hadn't gone through with canceling the cards."

"I might scrape up some Chex Mix for you to give her! She's not the mean one, is she?"

"No. She is great. I'm definitely going to offer her cake the next time I make one. I talked to her Tuesday, but she hadn't seen it then, and I didn't see it when I glanced in her truck then."

Even Steven is sitting on The Pony's shoulder, too! Even though it took him five days to find his perch.

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