Winning Big in...Oklahoma???

If your hand has ever itched to pull the lever on a slot machine, or the thought of those three beautiful 7's perfectly aligned on the center line (with max credits bet, of course) has ever made your heart beat just a little quicker, then fear not, my friends! Just because you're thousands of miles from either Atlantic City or Las Vegas, doesn't mean you can't find quality gambling establishments nearby, that will certainly be just as eager as the big boys to take your money. (Only, they'll do it without the pretty boardwalk, and no awesome Hoover Dam just a short drive away. And if Jerry Seinfeld, or Celine Dion, or Tom Jones were to ever headline at one of these places, they would no doubt appear on stage not in their traditional performance attire, but in a straightjacket, tied to a chair, with a very large, very imposing, heavily-armed man positioned behind the curtain, stage-left, aiming an Uzi at their head, just in case they realize they made a wrong turn at the Grand Canyon and wound up in the wrong casino. But I digress...and it’s only the first paragraph!)

Gambling is fun for the whole family...

No, wait...that’s not how this was supposed to go.

Let’s try this again.

On my 21st birthday, my parents took me to Atlantic City, where they handed down to me their love, their happiness, and the family tradition of losing your shirt at the craps table.

*Furrows brow.* Wait a minute…that’s still not how this was supposed to go. *Sigh*

~~~Take 3...marker...aaaand...action!~~~

Growing up in New York City, the casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey, were only about two and a half hours away. (Assuming, of course, you didn’t run into trouble with Jersey drivers, which could lead to anything from a serious case of potty-mouth and/or carpal tunnel in your middle finger, to a road-rage-induced aneurism, in which case, you might be hospitalized, and it would take you more like a week to get there.)

*Grrr…*
Damn it, muse, can’t you let me write something serious for a change?

Last time, and I mean it. (No, really!)
*Deep breath.*

I like to gamble. I like the sounds of the casino. I like the sights in the casino. I like the colored lights, the happy tunes in major keys, and the illusion it all creates that I, little ol’ me, just might walk out of there a whole lot richer than when I walked in.

I’ve been to casinos in Atlantic City, Las Vegas, New Mexico, and have recently added Council Bluffs, Iowa. I’m not what you would call a “high roller.” I’m not even what you would call a “low roller.” I’m what you could call “someone who takes a few dollars out of the ATM, because she wants to get the heck out of her room, off the base, and get a fun change of scenery, preferably in a place where there are free drinks and the potential to fatten her wallet.”

I never take more than a hundred dollars with me. Maybe that sounds like a lot, especially considering I generally lose it all, but I don’t go very often. Just every now and then, when I’m in the mood for the very best thing about a casino: complete anonymity. When you’re gambling, unless you’re surrounded by friends, or happen to bump into someone you know, you could be anyone. You could be a poor student. You could be a rich-whatever. You could be the personal assistant to Harrison Ford. (‘Cuz, let’s face it: if you were Harrison Ford, you would most definitely not be anonymous, and therefore not fit into this paragraph.) Or, you could be the night janitor in the Monkey House at the Bronx Zoo. The point is, whoever you are outside the casino, whether you’re “Mom,” or “Corporal,” or just, “Hey, you,” in the cigarette-smoke hazey world with the psychedelic carpet and no windows, clocks, or other signs of the outside world, you are whoever you want to be.

I’m not a courageous gambler. I’ve never sat down at a blackjack or poker table and assembled a stack of chips in front of myself. I don’t know the rules of casino card games well enough to not screw things up for the people around me. I don’t want to accidentally hit when I should stay, or whatever it is people mess up in blackjack. I’ve never placed a bet on a craps table, or taken my chances at roulette.

I’m a bit of a loner when it comes to gambling. (Not to mention a bit of a P-word, but you didn’t hear that from me.) I take my money, and I sit myself down in front of the video slots. If you sit there long enough, and are willing to be up and down, and up and down, you actually can come out ahead, even if you’re playing the nickel slots. (Not that it’s likely, mind you, just possible.)

Anyway, all of this was just a funny way (I hope) of setting the stage for what this essay is really about: hitting the jackpot.

In all the times I’ve been to casinos, I’ve only come out ahead two or three times. (And, as I am still working out like crazy and not eating sugar or starch, you can infer that in those two or three times, I did not come out far enough ahead to afford that elusive liposuction...) The most I’ve ever won is about two hundred dollars. Other than that, next time you see Donald Trump, tell him “you’re welcome,” for me, because I probably paid for his silk tie. (Or his shoes...or his kids’ college educations...LOL...no, not that much! I said I don’t gamble that often!)

The vast majority of times I’ve gambled (which, again, just to make sure we’re clear on this point, is not vast at all), I’ve exited the casino with less money than I had when I entered.

It wasn’t until just a few months ago (almost a whopping seven years after my 21st birthday), that I realized I had, in fact, been winning big all along.

Last April, several of my friends and I were stationed at Goodfellow Air Force Base, in San Angelo, Texas, for training. With the exception of a Wal-Mart, some seriously good steakhouses (Texas, remember), and an extremely kick-ass bar, San Angelo boasted few signs of civilization. (Except, that is, for its ideal location: three hours from San Antonio, and five hours from Dallas. Um...yeah, so maybe not so ideal. In all seriousness, though, I had a great time there, but it was much more the people I was with, than where we were, that did it, not to mention a fabulous instructor upon whom I had an enormous crush.)

Anyway, we were always on the lookout for fun things to do on weekends. One of the friends who was stationed with me had recently developed a slight interest (okay, total addiction) to gambling. Not that he was about to risk the deed to his house or anything; he just liked to play the video slots now and then, ever since he won $300 at a casino we stopped at while in transit from our previous base. So, for a few weeks, he’d been bugging a group of us to find a casino somewhere within reasonable driving distance.

After doing some research on the internet, he found one that sounded promising. Next thing I knew, it was 7:00 the following Saturday morning, and five of us were piling into my car, heading out to seek our fortunes at the fabulous, exciting (read: sarcasm) Comanche Red River Casino, in fabulous, exciting...

Devol, Oklahoma. (Read: more sarcasm.)

While it wasn’t exactly Caesar’s, (or the Venetian, or the Bellagio, or any other casino they’d ever make a movie about), it was still a casino, and offered just as big a chance as the famous ones, to either lose your shirt or buy five hundred new ones, spun with threads of pure gold that forty Sri Lankan seamstresses went blind to sew.

The Comanche Red River Casino was literally in the middle of nowhere. We got off the interstate, got onto a smaller highway to the middle of somewhere, onto an even smaller road to the outskirts of Podunk, and finally, onto a dirt path that took us to the casino. (We may have passed a church or two along the way, too, thus proving that Devol, Oklahoma, was, in fact, a legitimate “town.” Any place that has a church, right? Or is that, “strip club?” [Because we passed a few of those, too.] *Contemplates.* Never mind...I think I meant “post office.”)

To make a long story short, none of us drove home in brand new Porsches. No, the ride home was made pretty much the way the ride there was made: in my Saturn, with two people in front, and three squished in the back. And, by "squished," I mean that I, being the smallest of the five, was trapped in the middle of the backseat (of my own car!), between two guys who insisted on sitting with their legs wide open the entire time, while poor little A had all four of her limbs pressed firmly into the rest of her body. It's a good thing I was the only one back there with hips, or we really would have been in trouble! (On the other hand, I must say, the people I was squished between happened to be two very good looking gentlemen, and I'd had some wine with dinner, so, aside from the physical discomfort, it actually worked out quite nicely. I think they would agree, but that's a subject for another post!)

Only one of us came out ahead, and it wasn’t me. My friend, T, won about $80 dollars. The drive home was going to take about three hours, so we decided to stop for dinner before we got on the road. The thing was, the closest place to eat was an hour away, in fabulous, exciting...

Wichita Falls, Texas. (Read: yet more sarcasm.)

Wichita Falls, Texas has exactly three redeeming qualities: a really great used book store, an Olive Garden, and Sheppard Air Force Base. (And, really, that last one isn’t even necessarily a redeeming quality. Depends on what mood I’m in when you ask!) Anyway, you get one guess as to which one we chose for dinner.

Good spirit that he is, T offered to use his winnings to treat everyone to dinner. (A nice idea at the time, but one that he may have wound up regretting when the check came, since there’s no way $80 covered our five entrees, two bottles of wine, and dessert.)

We had a fantastic time at dinner. We’d all been training together for almost two years, and in that time, had become close friends – especially important, since all our “old friends” were back home, thousands of miles away. We’d become the kind of friends you can count on in a crisis. The kind of friends who help without being asked, and are glad to do it.

Spending time together was always fun, but factor in the wine, and you can imagine how much more fun it was. As individuals, we don’t agree on the big three: politics, money, and religion. But, as a group, we agree on what really matters: what it means to be a good person, and what it means to be a friend.

It was during dinner, and during the drive home (squished and uncomfortable though I was), while I was laughing so hard, and having such a good time, that I realized this -– being surrounded by people you love -– is the real jackpot.

Winning at life has nothing to do with winning money. Hitting the jackpot is laughing at the most off-the-wall things, and having the kind of conversations you can only have with people with whom you’ve faced hardship. Being in our particular specialty in the Air Force, I can’t legitimately say we’re brothers-in-arms. We’re about the furthest things you can imagine from combat veterans, but still, dismissing the amount of training we’ve experienced together would belittle the intelligence and dedication it took to get through it all, not to mention how it would neglect the most notable thing: that we all survived it with our sanity intact.

(Well, mostly. Some days, I wonder...)

Anyway, the more I thought about this, the more I came to appreciate how much and how long I’d been winning. I don’t enjoy my job. At all. It’s only saving grace is the people who suffer through it with me. And when I look around my “office,” and I see the faces of people I’ve known for only two years, but feel like I’ve known forever, I know I’m coming out a big winner. Maybe there are no bells and whistles; maybe no flashing lights. But seeing those people, laughing at their jokes, smiling at their happiness, and wallowing right alongside them in their misery, I can almost hear the reels clicking into place, in that magical spot where money pours out of the machine. (At least, it did in the old days. Now, you just get a printed ticket, which, I admit, is much faster and more convenient, but still, there was something promising about carrying around a bucket with eight pounds worth of quarters in it!)

If we consider big winnings not in money, but in love, friends, family, health, and dreams, I’ve been pretty damn lucky. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have incredible people in my life. If you’ve read the post about my parents (“Real-Life Superheroes”), then you know they were just about the most amazing parents a kid could ask for. Transfer the hard work, the decency, the intelligence, the caring, the integrity, and the physical and emotional support to my friends, and you’ll know the kinds of people I’ve been fortunate to have in my life. (Well, maybe not the integrity...who among us hasn’t “accidentally” taken a pad of Post-it-Notes home from the office, or “forgotten” to contribute to the office coffee fund? Or, in my fellow service members’ case, who among us hasn’t had “car trouble” on the way to a “mandatory” formation, or whose “alarm clock didn’t go off because of a blackout” during the middle of the night, before an early shift?)

(...I admit to nothing, by the way...)


But seriously, when it comes to dumb luck in friends and family, I’m about the highest roller there is. No one has ever, ever laughed at me when I told them I wanted to be a writer. No one said it was a pipe dream, or that I would never really do it. No one ever told me I was crazy, or asked how the heck I would pay the bills. In fact, it’s always been the opposite. People ask what I like to write about, or if they can read something sometime. If anyone thought I was nuts for joining the Air Force (and going enlisted, no less!), no one ever said so. I rambled on and on to many friends, for many hours, during the long months when I was deciding whether I would go to grad school or join the military. If any of them ever had any misgivings (and I know they did), once my decision was made—whether or not it was the one they agreed with—not one of them failed to support me.

So many of my close friends went to the kind of schools people “name drop” at parties, or networking events. I have friends who are lawyers, engineers, software designers, financial planners, and military officers. We all look really good on paper. The thing is, none of that really matters. What matters is how they treat people. The energy they radiate to the world. The good things they’ve been given, that they put back out there, in whatever ways they can.

Like I said in a previous post, I’ve had a very easy life. I’ve had no true hardships to speak of. I’m in great health. I have four working limbs, I’m not deaf, and not blind. On the other hand, I’m not good at everything. In fact, I’m not even good at most things, but I am good at the things I love to do (and, really, that’s probably why I’m good at them, because God wants me to do them), and when there was something I wasn’t good at, but still needed to accomplish, well, that’s where all those friends have come in handy. (Special thanks to M, who pulled me up a hill during survival training, and to B, who pulled me into the raft during water survival. Of course, those are two of the more vivid memories I have of a literal “helping hand,” but people who have loaned an ear to listen, or a shoulder to cry on, have made just as lasting an impact.)

I’ve never been let down in a big way. I’ve had some “learning experiences,” and some “opportunities for self-improvement,” but have never faced an insurmountable challenge. In some ways, I long for one, if only to prove to myself than I can do it, that I’m strong enough, and smart enough, and dedicated enough. And then, other times, I sit back and count my blessings that I’ve never been in a situation where I had to prove anything -- to myself, or anyone else.

There isn’t anything I long for that I’m not capable of achieving. Maybe not all on my own, and maybe not overnight, but everything I dream about, everything I imagine happening in my future, I’m perfectly capable of making happen. I have the time. I like to think I have the talent. (The fact that I’m not using it is completely my fault.)

The only thing I have ever desired, have ever worked and worked and worked for, and not achieved, is being thin. Two marathons, a million diets, and a spoonful of ipecac syrup later, I’m exactly the same shape I’ve always been. (And for those of you who might be thinking, “But you look FINE,” well, just pretend you see me the way I see me, and we’ll get along just great.) It is the only dream of mine that I don’t think I can make come true. I’ve tried everything I know, and when I find out something I didn’t know, I try that, too. Fitting into ___ size clothes, or weighing ____ pounds is the only big thing that has eluded me all my life. (And if you’re thinking it’s not a big thing, then you’ve probably never been a teenage girl...or a young woman in college...or a woman who’s too old to feel this way about herself, but still does.)

Some days I ask myself whom I’d be willing to trade. Who would I be willing to say goodbye to, to go into a store and pick a size ___ off the rack, and have it fit me? Who would I be willing to never see again, to have my name magically appear on The New York Times bestseller list next week?

Or, I ask myself what someone would have to give me, in trade for my family, or my friends. A huge yacht? Dream on. All the gold in Fort Knox? Not even close. There’s nothing. There’s nothing I can imagine (and I like to think I have a pretty wild imagination), that I’d accept as a fair exchange for the people in my life. Nothing.

My life isn’t perfect. But it’s not a tragedy, either. It’s not my fantasy world, but it’s a whole lot more than “just okay,” too. Then again, when I think of all I have – in material things and the people in my life, maybe it is my fantasy life. The writing will come. The book signings will come. The fulfillment will come. Everything else is already in place: the talent, the love of the creative process, the friends, the family, the support system. And, in that sense, I’ve been winning big all along.


"I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

"We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over." ~~Samuel Johnson

"Two may talk together under the same roof for many years, yet never really meet; and two others at first speech are old friends." ~~ Mary Catherwood

(And my favorite):
"It's the ones you can call up at 4:00 a.m. that really matter." ~~Marlene Dietrich



Next up: Possibly an essay on why Calvin Klein Escape perfume makes me smile when I think about the future.