On leave, #1

I went to Yakima to visit my Dad and some of my friends that still lived there.

Being a Thursday afternoon, Dad was bowling in the Senior league. He introduced me to several of his friends. Every one of them felt the need to hug me. That was wonderful. Nothing like getting some old people love from strangers.

After our little visit, I went into the card room. They had black jack, pai gow, etc. I had a bunch of disposable income, so I wanted to play some cards. I sat down at the Pai Gow table, and started playing.

Not much later, I ended up hitting a straight flush, and won $250. Since I was up at that point, I decided to walk away. So, I got up, and headed toward the cage to cash out.

I passed by the Texax Shoot Out table, and noticed the dealer was a woman that I used to deliver pizzas with back in the day. "What are you doing here?" she asked. "What are YOU doing here?" I replied.

We spoke for a moment, then I decided to sit down at the table, as I had a few extra $5 chips.

The second hand I was dealt, I had an Ace and 8 of clubs. She then dealt five cards in this order: 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King of clubs.

That's right, I had a 7 card Royal Flush. I won $1000 for that hand. I wish I had did that on the Pai Gow table. I would have made about $30,000. So, I tipped the dealer, cashed out at the cage, and left. When I got into my car, I took a picture of my $1,250. Mostly because I knew I wasn't going to see it again.

The next day, I went to lunch with my Dad and my daughter's mom, Ange. We had a great lunch, and when the check came, I immediately grabbed it. Dad argued, of course. His train of thought was "I'm your father, I'll pay for lunch."

I then pulled out my camera, and showed him the picture of the money I won the day before. Then, I paid the bill, and handed him $200. "What's this for?"    "Just for being my dad."

After lunch, we went to our favorite bar for some drinks. Dad"s friend Craig showed up, as well as my friends Ron and Hannah. We had a few beers and talked about old times, while Dad and Craig played pull tabs.

After a while, I noticed that my dad was writing checks for pull tabs. "Knock that off, Dad. Here's some money, let me know when it runs out."

Since they were playing, I decided that I would play, too. There was an "In Til You Win" game that they had just put up, and the top prize was $500. I put $5 into the game, and checked out my tabs. The first one I opened was $5, and the second was $500.

"Well, the $500 is mine, and everything else is for you, bartender. I'm going to go smoke."

So, in less than 24 hours, I won $1,750. And I spent all of it while I was on leave. It was great fun, though.