In the classic screwball farce Airplane, Ted Striker has a drinking problem. Specifically, he has a problem getting the drink to his mouth.
Similarly, I have a gambling problem. Don’t worry, mom and dad. I’m not going broke. The bets rarely rise higher than a $4 Vittles sandwich, maybe once in a while I bet lunch at the Tombs. The stakes are consistent, and the slope hasn’t been all that slippery. No, the problem is that I always lose.
I’ve never gambled to excess. I’ve just never been a very good gambler. Christ, I’ve never been a passable gambler. I always throw a few bucks into a NCAA tournament pool. Never won that. Insta-scratch lottery tickets? Nope. In fourth or fifth grade, I bet a kid on my Little League team $5 he wouldn’t hit a home run in his next at bat. I lost that too.
But against all better judgment I just keep betting, usually wagering menial tasks, embarrassing dares or overpriced gourmet sandwiches. Maybe it’s pride, maybe it’s an unwavering hope in the future, maybe it’s playing the percentages, but things reached a particularly sad head this past semester in the Voice office. There, we have a large garbage can and many crumpled pieces of paper. My fellow executive editor Will Cleveland and I play garbage can HORSE. I have not won a single letter. As the holidays approached, my embarrassment and dwindling sandwich budget led me to swear off garbage can HORSE, and gambling generally. I was happy, and eating more sandwiches than ever.
Over winter break, I visited Will, who lives in St. Paul, Minn. In search of culturally significant activity at 2 p.m. on Monday afternoon in the Twin Cities, we went to the Mall of America. After eating cheese curds, we stumbled across Legoland, where there is a Lego racetrack. For former Cub Scouts, it’s like a Pinewood Derby for Legos. The kids crawl around in a pile, trying to construct their dream machines, usually based on some inexplicable preadolescent aesthetic which favors asymmetry, jagged lines and as many colors as possible. The fastest resembled a brick. The more typical resembled the Pakistani school-bus jalopy parked outside the Smithsonian’s Sackler Gallery of Asian Art.
After watching the proceedings for a few minutes, we started swapping observations about the vehicles’ relative performances. Then we started to pick the winners. Then we started wagering. We came prepared—I had four singles, Will had five dollars and a shitload of Taco Bell Bucks. Sadly, we were without bad cigars and visors, but we played the part best we could. We leaned over the track, wads of cash in hand, and shouted our picks, snatching our winnings while grunting giddily.
The kids were oblivious; the parents were not. The looks ranged from amusement to disgust, but the most common was jealousy. More than a few dads seemed to want a piece of the action. But they would have been fools to bet against me that afternoon at the Mall of America. I don’t what happened. Maybe I was inspired by the tykes’ enthusiasm. Maybe I finally entered the ever-elusive “zone”. Maybe it was the fried cheese. But I started winning, and I didn’t stop.
After 20 minutes, I had taken all of Will’s real money and, at a 2-to-1 exchange rate, the Taco Bell Bucks were starting to look good. By that time, the desperation and the realization that I had finally gotten lucky convinced Will that he would have no more of this. No, it was time we built our own cars.
While sitting Indian-style on the pile, a 5-year old girl came up to me and asked why I was there. I had no answer for her. I turned the other way and applied everything from my Pinewood Derby days (another thing I never won) to the Lego format. After 10 minutes of agglomeration, it was race time. The negotiations began. Since I had cleaned out Will’s legal tender, he offered $10 in Taco Bell Bucks. I wanted cash, so I settled for a $5 IOU.
The gates fell, the cars slipped down the track, and Will pulled ahead with about two feet to race. Suddenly a rugrat ex machina descended, snatching Will’s car cleanly from the track, and clearing me for the win. I hold his car was swerving into the wall and would have lost anyway. Will disagrees.
In any case, my unfamiliar success bred unfamiliar generosity. Though I crossed the finish line first, we called it a draw to be settled by rematch. But by then it was too late—as if it had entered a Lilliputian chop shop, my yellow creation was cannibalized as soon as it crossed the finish line. Apparently, wheels were in short supply, so mine were quickly stripped by some unscrupulous tot, leaving the rest moot.
Emotionally drained, fiscally replenished and nauseous from the cheese, we left the track for some post-holiday bargain hunting. But not before I decided never to gamble again.
I’m quitting while I’m ahead. Though still down for my lifetime, I was up for the day, and it felt good. No more NCAA pools, no more scratch-and-win, no more garbage can HORSE. Just keep me away from the Lego races.
Mike DeBonis is a junior in the College and the Managing Editor of the Georgetown Voice. He ain’t fooled by the rocks that you got.
