If you recall just a few short days ago I resolved, among other things, to stop wasting so much goddamn money. I outlined two of the more egregious ways I have wasted money over the last calendar year and what I must do to avoid extending that trend through the back-9 of my 20s. Well 2006 is barely a week old and I have already failed in spectacular fashion. The completeness of my failure is so remarkable that I would be remiss were I to simply shut off my cell phone, make a big ass box of Macaroni & Cheese, and watch whatever comes on The Super Station like I normally do when I'm nursing a viscious hangover. Instead, in a nod to the therapeutic capacity of the written word, I figured I would rehash the finer moments of my complete lack of self-control for the benefit of those who take pleasure in the misery and misfortune of others.
The first thing to understand is that on Wednesday I took USC and the Under. If you are a gambler you know that means Vegas, or in this case St. Kitts, took my money, rolled it up real nice and fucked me in the butt with it.
I watched the National Championship game in a dingy Berkeley apartment with a few friends I hadn't seen in awhile. The apartment was masterfully appointed with maps of random countries and furniture that was either handed down from previous tenants or...how shall we say...appropriated from one of several on-campus student housing facilities. The environmentally and economically friendly decor was rounded out by a sea empty PBR cans, broken bong stems, and cracked whip-its to give it that 'lived-in, welcome-home' kinda feeling. Naturally, we spent the better part of the game adding to the collection of crumpled aluminum. By the middle of the 3rd quarter, the floor looked like the bottom of a homeless man's shopping cart.
This kind of drinking coupled with nary a crumb to eat were to be the first step on my very own New Year's Resolution Slippery Slope.
My bets started to go south with about 10 minutes left in the 4th quarter. That was the point at which, it seems, Vince Young and the entire USC defense conspired to fuck anyone who felt even remotely comfortable with their wagers after USC's second touchdown of the half put them up by 12. There are only so many times one can watch a 6'5" antelope of a man run around the field converting 3rd down-and-forever before one must come to grips with the inevitably of an excruciating loss.
Everyone deals with that moment differently. A friend of mine swears off sports gambling forever, until next week. I manically fiddle with my money or the pending wagers in my online sportsbook account. A couple years ago in Vegas for the Super Bowl I wouldn't stop counting my wad of cash while watching the day's college basketball games. At the blackjack table, I incessantly tabulated my chip total. My friend Will told me I looked like Marc Summers on the front end of a crank binge. And I was dead sober for most of that.
With online gambling, the fiddling is a little different. I'll log on to the site, go to the pending wagers page and repeatedly calculate what my total bankroll will be if certain wagers win or lose. Most times the mania is assuaged by the fact that at least half of my wagers come in. Other times, however, when the internet and the Bowl Championship Series decide to fuck me, I go on a mad dash through the potential wagers for all of the games remaining that day looking for one or two games on which I can make back the total sum of that day's losses. When I'm sober, those wagers tend to be more or less sane and involve teams I've actually heard of. When I'm half in the bag, I end up betting untoward sums of money on Haitian jai alai matches or, worse, like Wednesday night, the second half Over in the Indiana Pacers-Denver Nuggets game. Did you know Jermaine O'Neal and Marcus Camby were out for that game? I sure didn't and it certainly explains why they didn't come within 10 of the 2nd half total.
Welcome to Reckless Wagerville, population: Me.
By 10pm PST, the University of Texas was National Champion, the Pacers as a team in the second half had barely managed to eclipse Allen Iverson's points-per-game average, and I was much drunker and much, much poorer than I was 4 hours earlier. In an attempt to stop the hemorrhaging I ignored my asshole friends' advice to get up and go drinking and instead played $100 hands of internet blackjack, three at a time, until I lost close to $2000 against four consecutive unnatural blackjacks by the e-dealer. Anyone who has ever been to a casino and played blackjack for money knows that there is no worse feeling than pulling a 20 with the dealer showing a 6, only to have him flip over the down card to show a 5. They say only death and taxes are certain. Bullshit. Here comes the face card. Now imagine that feeling four times in a row.
It was at this point that I saw the wisdom in my friends' urgings. Accordingly, I walked up the street to the bar they were in and proceeded to throw crown-and-cokes into the hole in my face until the bartender was able to trick me into believing that a) they were out of Crown Royal and b) even if they weren't, it was 2am and time to leave. I think my friends were in on the ruse, because they kept apologizing to the bartender and telling me it was time to leave as well. Pussies.
The next thing I remember, I'm plopping myself into the recliner in my mother's living room with a bag full of Jack in the Box tacos. To be clear, I remember being home, not so much getting home. I'm unsure as to my method of conveyance and can only hope that I hired a homeless vagrant to drive me home in my mother's car and agree to find his own way back to Berkeley. I am slightly skeptical.
Annihilating my tacos and watching Law & Order on TNT, I decided to open my laptop and "read" my email. I say "read" because my powers of cognition were negligible by this point and I have absolutely no memory of checking my email. The only proof I have is a handful of emails that were marked as read but whose contents were completely alien when I read them the next afternoon.
At some point between Law & Order and being licked awake by my dog, I committed yet another heinously wasteful act. Apparently, I got it in my head that it would be a good idea to change the return flight on my frequent flyer ticket to one that left the following day on a different airline through a different city...in first class. Even better, I soon discovered--thanks to the Fraud Prevention Department at MBNA--I decided, HEY!, why not connect through Dallas and get on the flight my girlfriend is taking back to New Jersey so we can sit together...in first class?! This way, I can see her four hours earlier than I would have AND, as a University of Texas graduate, she gets to rub the salt of their victory into the wounds of my calamitous wagers. YAY FOR ME!!!
I got her back though. Not 20 minutes into the flight, I "accidentally" spilled Diet Dr. Pepper all over her crotch. Whoopsy. That's pretty even-steven, don't you think? Two ill-conceived wagers, one massively retarded wager, $2000 in internet blackjack, and god knows how much in first class airline tickets for a wet crotch. Winna Winna Winna.
Shoot me.
Posted by nils at 4:54 PM