Life Lessons

Living in Reno has been quite the experience. I have become used to seeing the strip clubs, slot machines in grocery stores, adult stores, glitzy lights of the casinos, and run down trailer parks. I tend to stay far away from the downtown area at night, it lost its luster long ago. Most restaurants open late, even on the weekends are in the casinos. The food there likes to throw my stomach into fits, so usually I would much rather cook up a chicken quesadilla at home and call it a night.

I moved closer to downtown, and my new roommate, Jordan, is hungry 18.5 hours out of the day. My other roommate, Jackson is hungry at least 18 hours out of the day. So between the three of us, someone is always hungry. Sometimes hangry.  

It was Friday, somebody was hungry and nobody knew what to eat. So we drove.

Also, I am the smallest of our group. And size-wise, I’m not puny. Sure I might have small feet (same size 8s since the 7^th grade), but I’m still 6 foot and not skin and bone. On top of that, both Jordan and Jackson hate the way I drive. I like to Tokyo drift around corners, back into ATM bays, run pink lights, and listen to rock and roll at high volumes.

So naturally I drove my car – the smallest that any of us own.

Jackson complained when my music was too loud. Jordan played with the radio to annoy me. They both yelled when I played pac man with the dotted line.

Most of all nobody had any idea of where to eat. Push came to shove and we ended up driving up 8 floors of the parking garage of the El Dorado casino.

We went to Tivoli, a typical casino café. I wanted to take our server Sue home to be our mother. She was the nicest. When I chose to eat the fried chicken on the biscuit she said I made the right choice and she’d bring extra gravy out for me. It was greasy, cheap, and delicious. All the things I was looking for. It filled me right up.

J and J (they’re bound to start a boy band) were feeling like high rollers and wanted to gamble. You see, I’ve had my gambling phase and I really don’t care much to throw money around for nothing; that stresses me out. But you can basically talk me into doing anything, so we went to the Peppermill. I saw my friend Jess on the way there and she said that I am a creep.  

First we played roulette. Gracie was our dealer and she memorized our names. I felt VIP. But really, I was spending about the lowest you can spend while looking for an hour of gambling. We had fun and I got pretty lucky. I turned the 60 in my pocket into 145. That’s a decent pull. Just some change.

However, and here’s the moral of the story, the Blue Jays (get it Jackson? cause of the couch) lost 40 dollars apiece. So the moral goes: don’t gamble, nobody wins. It’s useless. I taught them that lesson on the drive home. Funny lessons you learn teaching kids every day. Psssh.

"We folded arms and I felt your heart hum.

Speedy eyes and I want what I want...

I dreamt of nothingness in shades of red.

Honey, it never stops.

No, it never stops."

-It Never Stops- Bad Books