Country

Do me a favor. Load up this video and listen as you read:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc-V8_ZkHzw&feature=related

I thought the blonde at the game last night might have been the kids’ mom. Hubby and wifey want to play some poker and, unable to find a babysitter, bring the kiddies along. She busted out pretty quickly and came over to our table to say goodnight. She smelled of hard liquor.

R says, “You could play the cash game with us.”

“How mch?” She’s trashed.

“20 or 40, it’s up to you.”

“No thank you! I’m going. Thanks for the game R!”

R says, “Take a right out of the driveway so you don’t get lost.” A right hand turn out of the drive takes one down to the dead end of R’s road. I found his statement curious, but figuring it might be an inside joke or the like, I chose to keep my mouth shout.

T was at the game last night. I checked past posts and see that I haven’t played with/written about him since August 16. He’s a big, burley, Harley riding hot head who whined last time about playing .50/1.00 so we played .25/.50. He was to my left, which was of no concern because he’s such a tight wad that when he bets, one can safely fold all but the best hands and nut draws. When the young kid busted out and his dad took second in the tourney, and goodnights were said, we moved the cash game to the other table for better lighting. T wanted everyone to know that he still had the button, and we took a break.

I went outside to relieve myself: one of the advantages of being a male out in the country. T followed me out and headed over to his truck, opened the driver’s side door, turned on the engine, and either turned on the radio… or was he talking? Then I heard a woman’s voice. There definitely was a conversation, and thought I could see a woman’s hair in front of the passenger’s seat. What the hell?

A couple minutes later, T turned off the engine and I heard the last bit of the conversation. She said, “No, you go on back inside and have a good time. I’m fine right here.” He shut the cab door and walked back up to the house without a word to the observer.

Over the next hour, T throws back two beers, eventually loses the last of his chips and leaves. As he drove off I couldn’t stand it any longer and said, “There was a woman waiting out in his truck this whole time.”

R said, “Yeah, that was V.” The blonde. Apparently she and T are an item. She tends bar at one of the bigger pub tourney spots in the city 15 miles to our west. Again, it seemed like I was in the minority to think it odd for her to be sitting out in the cab of a truck at one o’clock in the morning waiting for her boyfriend to finish his game of poker.

Still, maybe I wasn’t as alone as I thought, for soon the conversation turned to compulsive gambling.

Last night was one helluva good night. I have two good stories and I came home a big winner. $70 in and more than double that coming home. The clincher was a hand of Pineapple straddled, min-raised, family-potted and bet again with numerous folks still in for my baby flush to take down.

We wrapped it up fairly early. B and J, a lovely couple and good players (J won the tourney), had a funeral to attend today, and R, who had to take his girlfriend to the airport in 2.5 hours, was, as usual, falling asleep at the table. As B and J got up to leave, I said I was packing it in as well. P asks, ”Are we quitting?” Down about $50, apparently he still had plenty of gamble left in him.