I haven’t slept in 72 hours. I have spent all my time watching my wife in the casino, making sure she doesn’t pawn her wedding ring to get more money to play penny slots.
We don’t really have the money to be in Vegas anyway. I’m in my third year of college; my wife is a Japanese foreign exchange student on her second year. I work 70 hours a week as a reporter for the local newspaper at four dollars an hour, the wife cant work until she gets her visa paperwork filled and sent back from the government.
This is our third trip to Vegas in two months.
“More coffee hun?”
“Huh?” I picked my head from my hands looking up to a grisly graveyard cocktail waitress.
“Yeah, coffee would be great. Thank you,” I mumbled.
She smiled and hurried off. Good service and no crowds were the benefits of playing slots at 6 am.
My wife kept pulling down the lever, triggering the dancing cherries and lucky sevens.
“Fucking,” she muttered. “I need the sevens.”
I just gave a half smiled and put my hand on her shoulder, slightly rubbing the knots that were formed there.
I usually give her $100 on our first day at the casino. Then I give her another hundred in $10 increments. And I give her $1’s after that. It helps to slow her loses, but really pisses her off.
“I need more money,” she holds out her hand, and I hand her a dollar. She puts it in the machine then presses the “max bet” button. The wheels slow, bar, seven, bar, nothing. She looks at me with her special, -you son of a bitch- face, and holds out her hand again for another dollar.
I was cringing as the woman came back with the coffee. I tipped her with the dollar I had produced from my pocket. This didn’t seem to amuse my wife. She re-thrusted her hand in my face. I gave her another dollar.
“God, I wonder how long this coffee has been sitting on the warmer,” I said.
“More money please,” and again with the hand.
“Honey, we are getting down to the last of our money, and I need to be awake enough to drive in…” I looked at my watch. She scowled. “Five hours. Holy shit! I need to drive us home in five hours!”
I stood up, “I need to get at least four hours of sleep, and we need to pack,” I said.
Admittedly, I was in a small sleep deprived panic.
“But what about more gamble?” she asked.
“Honey, you have gambled enough,”
Her face scrunched up and she folded her arms. “You aren’t the boss of me,” she said.
The blood fell from my face. “What?” I asked.
“You aren’t the boss of me,” she said again. her mouth began to open in preparation to say more.
I stopped listening, fumbling in my pocket I found what I thought was a $20 bill, and clapped it into her hand. Her eyes lit up for a moment, then went cold.
“You should have given earlier! It’s your fault that I not win, giving me dollars!” she holds up the bill, a $50, and in a tone that I am not proud to say my wife uses with me, says, “If I win, I don’t sharing with you.”
She spun and pranced back to her penny slots. I went up to bed. |
