Last night I went to the movies, caving in to an irresistible urge for popcorn, even though it was late and I was alone for the evening, which is not the best way to go - since there's nobody to talk it over with on the drive home. I went anyway, and the popcorn was really, really good.
The movie was "Fools Rush In," with Matthew Perry and Salma Hayek, and it was also good: poignant, funny, and very cleverly made. The only problem was - it was set in Las Vegas. I kept having this wave of creepiness sneak up on me each time some image from that peculiar city would play across the screen, and I couldn't figure out why. Finally I remembered the image below, and my night of personal "Sin City" horror came surging back in all its disgusting glory.
It was eleven years ago when I got the bright idea of taking my wife and my parents on a Las Vegas vacation. My parents had never been (that should have been a tip-off) and Les and I had not made the trip since before we knew one another. So we cleared a three-day weekend, though my father was notably skeptical about what a person could do there for that long. We booked rooms at the MGM Grand, where I'd stayed before, and I made sure my folks knew what a great place it was, what with all the fun film history vibe around it, and the great shows, and the great food, and the great casino...etc. We drove from L.A., got in early and kicked back at the pool for awhile in the afternoon, having made plans for the evening, which included dinner at what I knew would be the fanciest restaurant my parents had ever seen, and great seats in the big showroom. The identity of the headliner of that show no longer takes up any space in my memory, but I do remember that my mother was very excited about whoever it was.
But first, we (I) had to hit the casino. From the moment I had crossed the state line into Nevada, my thoughts kept flashing to images of money that had not previously existed coming dramatically into my possession. (Years before, on my first trip to a casino, I had enjoyed a run of beginner's luck on the roulette wheel - the ultimate sucker's game - and I have never really gotten over it.) Anyway, we hit the casino. I went directly to a roulette table, ordered a drink and sat down to watch my pile of chips, in little fits and starts, slowly disappear. After an hour or so of this kind of pleasure, I reluctantly pried myself away for some air and a fresh perspective. Dinnertime was approaching, and I wanted to relocate my parents, who were hovering around some slot machines, dropping a few coins here and there, and generally looking uncomfortable.
"You've got to play the machines on the aisle, mom," I offered, cunning casino-goer that I was. "They program those to pay off more often, so people walking by will be drawn in." And I stepped up to the very machine we see on this page, choosing it over several others since the jackpot was obviously over $800, and none of the others was more than $500. "The higher the jackpot, the more ready it is to hit," I continued, ever the font of gambling wisdom. I stuffed it with the max number of silver dollars for each rip, and I kept ripping.
After ten minutes or so, with my dad starting to talk about how hungry he was and with our restaurant reservations looming, I finally hit on the "Triple 7's" you see above. Bells rang. I screamed, my mom screamed, Les came running. Lots of people turned to see what had happened. "I just won $822, for God's sake - I can't believe this! I won!" "Allright, guy!" from a bystander. A big hug from Les. My mom's eyes bugging out. "But where's the money?" from me as it dawned on me that the tray below was still empty. "With a big jackpot, the floor guy has to come and pay you," said the bystander, and the words were not out of his mouth before the floor guy, indeed, was on the scene.
A more grim human I cannot remember seeing in my life. Gaunt and taut, pale, dark circles under narrowed eyes, reeking of "Brut" cologne, he positioned himself in front of the machine, thrust his hands into his pockets, and stared. "That's a two, or maybe a three," he said, eyes boring a hole into the readout. "What?" from me. "We're going to have to open this machine to see what it paid off," he said, and started talking into some device he carried. "Wait a minute. I just won $822 - and five CENTS," I say. "It says right there!" And then, for the first time, I noticed that the first number on the readout is not a number that actually exists. Looking like a backwards '6,' I had read it for an '8' with the upper left vertical bar of the LED burned out. When I look at it today, I still read it for that. But the floor guy had other ideas.
Soon joined by a couple of associates, one of whom opened the machine, they began to discuss how much the MGM Grand would have to pay to make good on my glorious moment. I was outraged. "It's an '8' with a bar missing! Anyone can see that!" I argued. "Sir," they answered, "this machine paid out earlier today. There's no way the pot could have climbed back that high." "What are you TALKING about!?! I wouldn't have played the damn thing if I thought it was a $300 jackpot. I'd have played the $500 jackpot right next to it!" "Actually," they countered, "the correct pot is $222, but the readout is defective. You can see that the lower right part of the first '2' should be off, like the '2s' next to it, but it is accidentally switched on." "That's ridiculous!" I retorted. "When these LEDs get old, the bars start to burn OUT - not IN. That's an '8' with a bar missing!"
I was sure they would come around to my point of view once they saw how passionately I held it, since what could the extra $600 mean to a business that size, compared to what it meant to me. And who is liable if such a machine is defective, anyway? Surely not the fool who is yanking on it. But they were adamant: $222.
I decided to play my trump card, since we were situated (thanks to my earlier cunning) on an AISLE after all, and the flow of human traffic through our standoff was huge. "They'll cave in if I make enough noise here," I thought to myself. "It's bad for business if all these people know how badly I'm being treated." So I started ranting as loud as I could about what cheats these guys were, and inviting every person within earshot to look at the readout on the machine and tell me what they thought (most were in agreement that the number had to be an '8') and then I started fuming about reporting them to the authorities. At one point they tried to buy me out by calling the number in question a defective '3,' but I was not going to be so easily silenced.
The longer and louder I beefed, the more angry these guys got, and it became apparent they were not going to change their position. They kept trying to get me off the floor, to discuss it in a more "comfortable" setting, but I wouldn't budge. I demanded to see a representative of the Gaming Commission. They said it would take at least an hour to get one on site. I said I'd wait. And I stood there, incessantly telling my tale of woe to an ever less receptive audience, as the evening turned late, dinner long since missed and the great seats to the show left unused, while Les and my parents sat off to the side, bleary-eyed.
Finally, a man purporting to be from the Nevada Gaming Commission arrived, took a perfunctory report without ever bothering to make eye contact, said the matter would be addressed at their next scheduled meeting (a month away), turned on his heals with a smirk, and exited the scene. A hotel rep who had replaced the original guys after the first couple of hours of the siege offered to pay me $222.05, pending the Gaming Commission's ruling (another smirk). Being a man of high principal, I refused it. Not only that, I let him know, I wouldn't be spending another night in his establishment, not that night or EVER.
Gathering my family, we hit the highway within half an hour and made the longest, quietest drive home imaginable, stopping only for an amazingly tasty midnight dinner at MacDonald's. Needless to say, I never heard a thing from the "Commission," and none of us have ever again set foot in Las Vegas. The experience is a piece of our history that doesn't get spoken about too often.
But I did like the movie "Fools Rush In," maybe in part because it reminded me that I'm not as big a fool, in one way at least, as I used to be.
Till the next time,
A
