This Week's Crazy-Ass Adventures of the Vanillacat
Episode 1
Monday morning - Chrissy decided to take me in for breakfast at the casino before work and pick up $10 of free cash while we were there. After dropping off our van with the valet (which normally cost $5.00, but for gold and platinum members it's free), we walked in towards the buffet. It's probably my fault... we had been talking for a while about how much we've been playing (and winning) over the last few months and that she should definately be able to renew her gold card status, which was expiring this month, or possibly even make platinum. So as we were walking in, I coaxed Chrissy into checking her status at the Prime Rewards counter. Not only had she not made enough yet to renew her gold status (she needed to gamble roughly another $600), they TOOK AWAY THE GOLD CARD SHE HAD! I was dumbfounded; she was devastated. And then the crushing blow was that she only had $1 in comps towards the buffet. We had to turn around and leave, dejected. Chrissy had said she didn't think she would ever go back.
Tuesday night - After I got off work, I had coaxed Chrissy into going to the casino, despite what happened the day before, in order to pick up $15 of free money they were giving Chrissy. When we got the money from the cashier, we decided we really didn't NEED the money, so we put the $15 in one of the machines... nothing. We took $20 we had on us and tried again... nothing. So we took a little bit of money from the bank, went down one floor, and tried our luck there. We played Cash Grab Monopoly... BAM! After a good Box Top bonus, we were up $40. Then we walked over to Hot Lines and hit a series of good 2x and Mystery Win 3x and 5x wins to make another $45, bringing us to $85. When we thought about what to do, we decided to leave with what we had. Booyah.
Wednesday night - At 9:30 p.m., after Chrissy got out of her accounting class and picked me up from work, we actually decided to go back to the casino again just to relax. We took $160 and were up and down for a while, but then it was just down. Afterward, we were feeling a bit depressed about what happened.
Thursday morning - Before work, I went down to mail the rent to the landlord and check the mail. My payslip comes in the mail the Thursday before payday Friday, and it happened to be there while I was checking mail. When Chrissy looked it over, she was surprised. There was an extra $80 she had not accounted for in figuring up my hours. So with that $80 and the $85 we won Tuesday night, it balanced out our bad showing Tuesday night. So all was better in the world. We stayed in that night and watched TV shows on the computer.
Friday night - Payday! Woohoo! After the rent and some other bills, we had $440 left over. We decided, since we could afford it, we took $200 of the money and headed back again. The first machine of the night seemed like a good omen: we played a Deal or No Deal machine and got the case game bonus. We knocked off some middle to low figures and were getting some good offers. Eventually, the banker had offered roughly $60 (3000 credits). There were still a 4000, 6000, and 8000 still in play, as well as about 3 lower amounts. I convinced Chrissy it would be okay to go one more time, since she only had to pick one case and she was going to be up money no matter what. When she picked again, she knocked out a case with 200 credits. The banker came back with an offer about $80 (around 4000 credits). Chrissy didn't want to chance it any further and took the deal. It turns out her case had the 8000 credits, so if she kept at it, she would have had $160, but half that was awesome.
After that, whenever we would lose $20 or $40, even at one point $80, we would make that money back on the next machine. We were staying ahead the whole time and took a break when we were $125 up. We decided to go up to another floor. We didn't do good there at all, losing $65 in three machines. We decided to go back to the 2nd floor and lost $80 in four machines. We were feeling like fools, and when we went to the 1st floor, it wasn't looking much better. We were losing some and then making it back, but we really didn't wind up ahead, and eventually we lost a few in a row and were down a lot a money with the casino closing in 10 minutes. Then we played Hot Lines and, like before, we got some 2x and Mystery Wins that got us $40 of our money back, but we were still down $100. Time was ticking down, but Chrissy had a strong feeling about a Clara T machine. Normally, I haven't seen them do that well, unless maybe you get the 15 free spins at 3x pay. Lo and behold, Chrissy got the 15 free spins ON THE VERY FIRST SPIN. And on the third spin in, there was a 5-of-a-kind of Clara T with wilds. Suddenly I saw the bonus win counter jump up to 30300 ($303). We were in shock, to say the least. A few spins later, she actually re-triggered to get more spins. There were some okay wins on some of the spins, as we as a couple teacup bonuses there were $18.75 each. When it was all said and done, not only did we make back the $100, we made an extra $254 dollars!! I'm not sure what it is about closing out the casino and hitting it big on the last machine (in October, I hit $1600 on a machine as the casino was closing). As the casino was closing up and we walked out, we stopped by the Prime Rewards counter to see if we made enough to get gold card status back. We walked out of the casino doors with a new gold card in hand. We celebrated by stopping at Burger King for crossandwiches (2 for $3) and cheesy tots, then headed home for well-earned rest.
Saturday morning - The day before, I had agreed to come into work Saturday at 11 a.m. to help for a couple hours in sorting through some part returns and getting them labeled and put away. When I was getting ready to leave, I could not find my security door badge. This was a big problem, as there is no front desk person on Saturday to buzz me in and if everyone else was already inside and I had no phone to contact them, I wouldn't be able to get inside. That's when I made a rather foolish decision. I was going to high-tail it to the casino to see if they had my card and get it before 11. So there I was, at the tender age of 34... I was flying down the back roads at a mighty fast clip. As I flew over the crest of a hill, I was greeted by the sight of a state patrol car driving the opposite direction... until they turned around and decided to follow me. As much as I would have loved to have made a getaway, I slowed myself down to 55 and tried to be cool as the patrol car followed me for a full minute. Finally, they flipped on the rollers, and I pulled my sorry ass over. "I stopped you because you were doing 79 in 55 zone." I didn't realize I was going that fast. When the cop (who in all fairness was decent) came back to the car, he gave me back my insurance card, along with a ticket for $95 (normally it would be $75, but since I was between 20 to 30 m.p.h. over the limit, it was an extra $20). I can't get my driver's license back until I pay the ticket. I was so embarrassed. Luckily with all the overtime I was doing, including the 3.5 hours I wound up working Saturday, I could pay back the $95... it's just a matter of having that blemish on my record that bothered me. After work, I went to the casino, but they said they didn't have it. I tried Burger King, too. No luck. So I'm going to have to pay money at work to get a new one, plus pay a $95 ticket. Suckage.
Chrissy was amazed and amused when I told her, and she playfully called her mom to humiliate me. Chrissy did an amazing job as always while I was gone. She took the $264 we won last night and applied it towards the Verizon bill, paying off an old debt, renewing the newspaper and Playboy, and buying some porn (inside story). Eventually, we started pondering what to do with the rest of the day. We had thought about going to the theater in town to watch National Treasure: Book of Secrets but decided against it because it was going to be too packed on a Saturday night. Since we had all those bills taken care of, we thought it would be okay to go back to the casino one more time.
We were able to park valet again, thank heavens. When Chrissy was turning in our coats at the coat check, a man there who was picking up his coats had talked about how he got claim tag number 777 and wound up having a really lucky night. He specifically requested that the tag be given to Chrissy so she might have a lucky night, too. She normally hands me the tag to hold onto while we're in the casino, but I told her to keep it, just on the chance that there was something to it. While late Friday was rather quiet where you could have your pick of machines, early Saturday evening was packed. I was getting cranky with all the nudges in the back as people walked by, and the games were not going well. We lost about $100 off the bat, losing on one machine after another. We would win $20 back, but then lose it again the next game. But then we hit a good round of bonus spins on Money Storm, and made $80 of the money back. We did have a couple other decent wins, but we were still down, eventually winding up down $60. That's when Chrissy put $40 in a L'il Lucy machine. She lost some, made some back... finally she decided to go for broke and raised her bet to $3 a spin. When she did, she wound up getting a wild panther (which makes the whole reel wild) on each of the middle three reels. "This will do it," I thought before even seeing the end result. It turns out she had an ace at the top position on reels 1 and 5. When you calculate it out, it makes 6 lines of 5-of-a-kind, which wound up being $100 each. All tolled, she made $675 on that spin, bring us up $575 for the night.
Believe me, we had NO inclination to give that back to the casino. In the course of less than 24 hours, we had made about $940 from the casino. Claim tag 777 had done its deed for the night. We stopped at the deli to have a nice meal and relax, then went to the grocery store and had fun buying all kind of sale items we wanted. Even after buying $60 in groceries and getting a $30 phone card, we still had $480 of our winnings left over. We came home and paid off our electric bill. It's a strange feeling to finish up the week paying off everything, having cabinets and a refrigerator full of food, having a mostly-full tank of gas, and still having $500 left with another $80 coming some from some sales we made on Amazon.
Monday morning - Chrissy decided to take me in for breakfast at the casino before work and pick up $10 of free cash while we were there. After dropping off our van with the valet (which normally cost $5.00, but for gold and platinum members it's free), we walked in towards the buffet. It's probably my fault... we had been talking for a while about how much we've been playing (and winning) over the last few months and that she should definately be able to renew her gold card status, which was expiring this month, or possibly even make platinum. So as we were walking in, I coaxed Chrissy into checking her status at the Prime Rewards counter. Not only had she not made enough yet to renew her gold status (she needed to gamble roughly another $600), they TOOK AWAY THE GOLD CARD SHE HAD! I was dumbfounded; she was devastated. And then the crushing blow was that she only had $1 in comps towards the buffet. We had to turn around and leave, dejected. Chrissy had said she didn't think she would ever go back.
Tuesday night - After I got off work, I had coaxed Chrissy into going to the casino, despite what happened the day before, in order to pick up $15 of free money they were giving Chrissy. When we got the money from the cashier, we decided we really didn't NEED the money, so we put the $15 in one of the machines... nothing. We took $20 we had on us and tried again... nothing. So we took a little bit of money from the bank, went down one floor, and tried our luck there. We played Cash Grab Monopoly... BAM! After a good Box Top bonus, we were up $40. Then we walked over to Hot Lines and hit a series of good 2x and Mystery Win 3x and 5x wins to make another $45, bringing us to $85. When we thought about what to do, we decided to leave with what we had. Booyah.
Wednesday night - At 9:30 p.m., after Chrissy got out of her accounting class and picked me up from work, we actually decided to go back to the casino again just to relax. We took $160 and were up and down for a while, but then it was just down. Afterward, we were feeling a bit depressed about what happened.
Thursday morning - Before work, I went down to mail the rent to the landlord and check the mail. My payslip comes in the mail the Thursday before payday Friday, and it happened to be there while I was checking mail. When Chrissy looked it over, she was surprised. There was an extra $80 she had not accounted for in figuring up my hours. So with that $80 and the $85 we won Tuesday night, it balanced out our bad showing Tuesday night. So all was better in the world. We stayed in that night and watched TV shows on the computer.
Friday night - Payday! Woohoo! After the rent and some other bills, we had $440 left over. We decided, since we could afford it, we took $200 of the money and headed back again. The first machine of the night seemed like a good omen: we played a Deal or No Deal machine and got the case game bonus. We knocked off some middle to low figures and were getting some good offers. Eventually, the banker had offered roughly $60 (3000 credits). There were still a 4000, 6000, and 8000 still in play, as well as about 3 lower amounts. I convinced Chrissy it would be okay to go one more time, since she only had to pick one case and she was going to be up money no matter what. When she picked again, she knocked out a case with 200 credits. The banker came back with an offer about $80 (around 4000 credits). Chrissy didn't want to chance it any further and took the deal. It turns out her case had the 8000 credits, so if she kept at it, she would have had $160, but half that was awesome.
After that, whenever we would lose $20 or $40, even at one point $80, we would make that money back on the next machine. We were staying ahead the whole time and took a break when we were $125 up. We decided to go up to another floor. We didn't do good there at all, losing $65 in three machines. We decided to go back to the 2nd floor and lost $80 in four machines. We were feeling like fools, and when we went to the 1st floor, it wasn't looking much better. We were losing some and then making it back, but we really didn't wind up ahead, and eventually we lost a few in a row and were down a lot a money with the casino closing in 10 minutes. Then we played Hot Lines and, like before, we got some 2x and Mystery Wins that got us $40 of our money back, but we were still down $100. Time was ticking down, but Chrissy had a strong feeling about a Clara T machine. Normally, I haven't seen them do that well, unless maybe you get the 15 free spins at 3x pay. Lo and behold, Chrissy got the 15 free spins ON THE VERY FIRST SPIN. And on the third spin in, there was a 5-of-a-kind of Clara T with wilds. Suddenly I saw the bonus win counter jump up to 30300 ($303). We were in shock, to say the least. A few spins later, she actually re-triggered to get more spins. There were some okay wins on some of the spins, as we as a couple teacup bonuses there were $18.75 each. When it was all said and done, not only did we make back the $100, we made an extra $254 dollars!! I'm not sure what it is about closing out the casino and hitting it big on the last machine (in October, I hit $1600 on a machine as the casino was closing). As the casino was closing up and we walked out, we stopped by the Prime Rewards counter to see if we made enough to get gold card status back. We walked out of the casino doors with a new gold card in hand. We celebrated by stopping at Burger King for crossandwiches (2 for $3) and cheesy tots, then headed home for well-earned rest.
Saturday morning - The day before, I had agreed to come into work Saturday at 11 a.m. to help for a couple hours in sorting through some part returns and getting them labeled and put away. When I was getting ready to leave, I could not find my security door badge. This was a big problem, as there is no front desk person on Saturday to buzz me in and if everyone else was already inside and I had no phone to contact them, I wouldn't be able to get inside. That's when I made a rather foolish decision. I was going to high-tail it to the casino to see if they had my card and get it before 11. So there I was, at the tender age of 34... I was flying down the back roads at a mighty fast clip. As I flew over the crest of a hill, I was greeted by the sight of a state patrol car driving the opposite direction... until they turned around and decided to follow me. As much as I would have loved to have made a getaway, I slowed myself down to 55 and tried to be cool as the patrol car followed me for a full minute. Finally, they flipped on the rollers, and I pulled my sorry ass over. "I stopped you because you were doing 79 in 55 zone." I didn't realize I was going that fast. When the cop (who in all fairness was decent) came back to the car, he gave me back my insurance card, along with a ticket for $95 (normally it would be $75, but since I was between 20 to 30 m.p.h. over the limit, it was an extra $20). I can't get my driver's license back until I pay the ticket. I was so embarrassed. Luckily with all the overtime I was doing, including the 3.5 hours I wound up working Saturday, I could pay back the $95... it's just a matter of having that blemish on my record that bothered me. After work, I went to the casino, but they said they didn't have it. I tried Burger King, too. No luck. So I'm going to have to pay money at work to get a new one, plus pay a $95 ticket. Suckage.
Chrissy was amazed and amused when I told her, and she playfully called her mom to humiliate me. Chrissy did an amazing job as always while I was gone. She took the $264 we won last night and applied it towards the Verizon bill, paying off an old debt, renewing the newspaper and Playboy, and buying some porn (inside story). Eventually, we started pondering what to do with the rest of the day. We had thought about going to the theater in town to watch National Treasure: Book of Secrets but decided against it because it was going to be too packed on a Saturday night. Since we had all those bills taken care of, we thought it would be okay to go back to the casino one more time.
We were able to park valet again, thank heavens. When Chrissy was turning in our coats at the coat check, a man there who was picking up his coats had talked about how he got claim tag number 777 and wound up having a really lucky night. He specifically requested that the tag be given to Chrissy so she might have a lucky night, too. She normally hands me the tag to hold onto while we're in the casino, but I told her to keep it, just on the chance that there was something to it. While late Friday was rather quiet where you could have your pick of machines, early Saturday evening was packed. I was getting cranky with all the nudges in the back as people walked by, and the games were not going well. We lost about $100 off the bat, losing on one machine after another. We would win $20 back, but then lose it again the next game. But then we hit a good round of bonus spins on Money Storm, and made $80 of the money back. We did have a couple other decent wins, but we were still down, eventually winding up down $60. That's when Chrissy put $40 in a L'il Lucy machine. She lost some, made some back... finally she decided to go for broke and raised her bet to $3 a spin. When she did, she wound up getting a wild panther (which makes the whole reel wild) on each of the middle three reels. "This will do it," I thought before even seeing the end result. It turns out she had an ace at the top position on reels 1 and 5. When you calculate it out, it makes 6 lines of 5-of-a-kind, which wound up being $100 each. All tolled, she made $675 on that spin, bring us up $575 for the night.
Believe me, we had NO inclination to give that back to the casino. In the course of less than 24 hours, we had made about $940 from the casino. Claim tag 777 had done its deed for the night. We stopped at the deli to have a nice meal and relax, then went to the grocery store and had fun buying all kind of sale items we wanted. Even after buying $60 in groceries and getting a $30 phone card, we still had $480 of our winnings left over. We came home and paid off our electric bill. It's a strange feeling to finish up the week paying off everything, having cabinets and a refrigerator full of food, having a mostly-full tank of gas, and still having $500 left with another $80 coming some from some sales we made on Amazon.