I have to tell you of this real life incident that happened to us a number
of years ago. I have
been going to Vegas for many years earlier and my daughter who was probably
around 12
when she started to ask me when I was going to take her to Vegas with me. I
always told
her that she would not be able to until she reached the gambling age of 21.
She never
did forget this and on her 20th birthday she reminded me that she would be
ready to go to
Vegas next year and as I had to be good to my promise, I had to take her.
Reality finally set in and I was trying to figure out if I could afford to
take the entire family, that
was my 21 year old daughter, my 17 year old son and my Wife. Well I had
little choice, a
promise is a promise and I ended up booking all four of us on a direct
flight from Toronto to Vegas.
While we were waiting to board our flight in the departure lounge the
announcement finally
came over the PA stating that our flight was boarding and we were to start
lining up. My kids
were with me but the wife had gone to the bathroom a while before and I
could not see her
anywhere. The three of us went to the back of the line and all the time
looking around for my
wife, as we were fast approaching the ticket desk we were getting a little
worried when she
finally showed up.
We were behind two other passengers before we would be giving our ticket
stubs to the
flight attendants when out of nowhere a young man appeared in a wheelchair
and came up
to my wife, whispered something in her ear and then placed something in her
hand and
quickly rolled away back into the terminal and disappeared. Almost at the
same time we
were at the counter handing in our tickets and walking onto the walkway to
the plane's
entrance. I finally started to question my wife on what took her so long and
who the guy in the
wheelchair was. She said that she was coming from the bathroom and she
noticed this 20's
blonde, not too bad looking man in a wheelchair going up to a number of
younger women
but was being ignored and as he passed my wife she noticed that his shoe
lace was undone
and she stopped him to tie it up, she exchanged some short pleasantries with
him and ran to get in line.
She then said that he gave her some kind of a memento and whispered that she
was the
only person on this flight to Vegas that actually acknowledged him and that
he wanted to give
her something. I still did not know what she had in her closed hand but as
we slowly walked
toward the plane's door she said it looked like it was a $5 chip but she was
not sure. I asked her
to show me and to my surprise she was holding onto a $500 MGM casino chip. I
guess in my excitement
I was a little loud and there were three women behind us that overheard me
and they told us that the
wheelchair guy was around them and if they would have known he was giving
that away chips they would
have surely spoke to him.
So here we were, still at the Toronto airport, going to Vegas and we were
already up $500. We did wonder
if the chip was legitimate and what was this guy doing giving away this chip
and he was not even boarding our flight.
This trip was probably one of the most memorable as the chip was good, we
went to the MGM and cashed it in with
no problems, My son who was obviously under age was like Papa Georgio, he
was being served drinks throughout
the entire trip, he hit the Jackpot at the Golden Nugget, Top Dollar machine
for over $1000.00 (For which I quickly
traded seats with to avoid any questions). I still remember going back to
our room to give him his money and he
jumped up and down on the bed throwing $100 bills into the air and then
taking us all out for a Lobster dinner afterwards.
What makes this story even stranger is that exactly a year earlier the wife
and I were on a business trip to Montreal and
I decided to go to the Montreal Casino and she went shopping so I gave her
$600 to hold onto (to pay for our hotel bill).
She was in a coffee shop that afternoon and wanted to buy a homeless one
armed man lunch, and somewhere in
between the line up to the cashier her wallet was stolen and she did not
realize it until she left the restaurant.
As this was many years ago the US dollar was at a all time high compared to
the Canadian Dollar so when we did the
math the $500 US chip came very close to the $600.
Looking back we now joke about that day when both of us got taken by one
armed bandits.
***********************************************
I don't believe in 'karma' either, Harry, but something similar happened to
me. I was in a casino gift shop/newsstand in LV, and I looked down and saw a
black chip. I don't think I'd ever even seen a red chip on the floor before
in many years of blackjack playing, but there's a $100 chip staring back at
me. I picked it up, paid for my tic-tacs or whatever, and went out the door.
A woman came out and I thought she might have been in front of me in line. I
said, "is there any chance you dropped a chip?". She put her hand in a
pocket and said, 'yes'. I asked, "what denomination?", still hoping I'd get
to keep it. She said, "Black". I gave it to her, and barely got a 'thank
you'. BUT...later that day, I accidentally made a duplicate horse bet that
I'd forgotten I'd made earlier. It paid something like $95, and I thought,
'maybe there IS something to this karma business!'
--Dunbar
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