sing that song, doo dah
It was a remarkably exhausting day. Who knew betting on horse racing would take so much out of you? Actually, I think driving to West Virginia is what did it, that and the long, constant stream of abuse A. and I spouted regarding country folk stereotypes - making fun of accents, hand-printed signs, and junk farms swathed in Confederate flags. We did not arrive at Charles Town until maybe 12:30 and we only stayed for four races before realizing that betting on horses is about as much fun as slot machines and therefore significantly less fun than any participatory card game. We did, however, manage to rather consistently lose money before taking our leave. Or did we?
A. came in with a system. Like always, he had polled some random friend, coworker, or acquaintance and subsequently deemed that person's advice to be sacrosanct. I am intimately familiar with A.'s peculiar brand of gambling-related insanity from our Vegas trip last summer. Before leaving A.'s parent's home, I had been treated to the one-two punch of both A. and his father pontificating on the tricks to 'winning at the races.' My attitude, bemusement mixed with annoyance, stems from the simple recognition that if there were any true trick to winning big at anything there would be a lot more people winning big and the Powers That Be would actively working on a way to close the loophole. I do my best to not evidence scorn in the presence of A.'s father.
Funny thing though, when we arrived at Charles Town Races (a labyrinthine casino decked in all manner of pagan iconography (one of the front desks was covered in pentagrams)), A. ended up standing in a vast, rather sparse, betting chamber, looking completely bewildered. He had no fucking clue. For all of the advice and schemes he managed to collect, he never once learned how to actually place a horse bet. I had no clue either. Neither did our female companion. We ended up needlessly buying the day's racing program ($1.00), a pink printout of computer-assisted handicapped race selections ($1.00), and a pen ($0.50) from none other than 'The Charles Town Fox' himself ("COMPARE... THE FOX'S Daily Results with his competitors - YOU BE THE JUDGE - CONSISTENCY PAYS OFF!!") That pen bit was quite the clever scam since there was really no point whatsoever in possessing one.
The program included all the necessary info to step up to the counter and place a bet, but A. would not let anyone else really peruse it. He sat down at a table beneath a bay of televisions displaying horse races from distant locales and immediately flipped to the data on the race participants. When his pick came in as the winner in the first race, he swelled with hubris and proceeded to bet in an increasingly illogical manner until digging himself a nice forty dollar hole. I too lost every bet as did our female companion.
It was not until five minutes into the drive home that I grabbed the program and began reading page one ("HOW TO PLACE BETS ON HORSES"). It turns out, we were actually betting wrong. Ignoring the bizarre allure of the hypercomplex variations (exactas, trifectas, superfectas, boxes, keys, wheels, and what-have-you), we had incorrectly taken A. at his word that he knew the respective meanings of betting on a horse to win versus to place or to show. In the end, each of us managed to discard one to two tickets that actually won some small pittance. The uncollected winnings were certainly not enough to offset our substantial losses, but they were enough to fill A. with bitterness and rage for the remainder of our return trip.
A fact which brought me some small joy.
The ride home was particularly wearying since I insisted on terryaki chicken (some sort of Vegas nostalgia stirred by the familiar strobes and bling-bling-blinging of slots). Our search for a Japanese restaurant that is open before five on Sunday proved particularly tedious. In the end, Boston Market was a last resort I selected because their grilled terryaki chicken is not inedible. I was returned to my car somewhere around five-thirty a mere thirty dollars poorer. Seven hours of A. is just about my limit, particularly after not getting anywhere close to adequate sleep the night before.
And we all pretty much agreed to stick to poker.
A. came in with a system. Like always, he had polled some random friend, coworker, or acquaintance and subsequently deemed that person's advice to be sacrosanct. I am intimately familiar with A.'s peculiar brand of gambling-related insanity from our Vegas trip last summer. Before leaving A.'s parent's home, I had been treated to the one-two punch of both A. and his father pontificating on the tricks to 'winning at the races.' My attitude, bemusement mixed with annoyance, stems from the simple recognition that if there were any true trick to winning big at anything there would be a lot more people winning big and the Powers That Be would actively working on a way to close the loophole. I do my best to not evidence scorn in the presence of A.'s father.
Funny thing though, when we arrived at Charles Town Races (a labyrinthine casino decked in all manner of pagan iconography (one of the front desks was covered in pentagrams)), A. ended up standing in a vast, rather sparse, betting chamber, looking completely bewildered. He had no fucking clue. For all of the advice and schemes he managed to collect, he never once learned how to actually place a horse bet. I had no clue either. Neither did our female companion. We ended up needlessly buying the day's racing program ($1.00), a pink printout of computer-assisted handicapped race selections ($1.00), and a pen ($0.50) from none other than 'The Charles Town Fox' himself ("COMPARE... THE FOX'S Daily Results with his competitors - YOU BE THE JUDGE - CONSISTENCY PAYS OFF!!") That pen bit was quite the clever scam since there was really no point whatsoever in possessing one.
The program included all the necessary info to step up to the counter and place a bet, but A. would not let anyone else really peruse it. He sat down at a table beneath a bay of televisions displaying horse races from distant locales and immediately flipped to the data on the race participants. When his pick came in as the winner in the first race, he swelled with hubris and proceeded to bet in an increasingly illogical manner until digging himself a nice forty dollar hole. I too lost every bet as did our female companion.
It was not until five minutes into the drive home that I grabbed the program and began reading page one ("HOW TO PLACE BETS ON HORSES"). It turns out, we were actually betting wrong. Ignoring the bizarre allure of the hypercomplex variations (exactas, trifectas, superfectas, boxes, keys, wheels, and what-have-you), we had incorrectly taken A. at his word that he knew the respective meanings of betting on a horse to win versus to place or to show. In the end, each of us managed to discard one to two tickets that actually won some small pittance. The uncollected winnings were certainly not enough to offset our substantial losses, but they were enough to fill A. with bitterness and rage for the remainder of our return trip.
A fact which brought me some small joy.
The ride home was particularly wearying since I insisted on terryaki chicken (some sort of Vegas nostalgia stirred by the familiar strobes and bling-bling-blinging of slots). Our search for a Japanese restaurant that is open before five on Sunday proved particularly tedious. In the end, Boston Market was a last resort I selected because their grilled terryaki chicken is not inedible. I was returned to my car somewhere around five-thirty a mere thirty dollars poorer. Seven hours of A. is just about my limit, particularly after not getting anywhere close to adequate sleep the night before.
And we all pretty much agreed to stick to poker.