Driving Miss Josie

In keeping with the chauffeur theme (not just my previous post, but also this one and this one), this entry will discuss the Monday last month that I took Josie and Lightning downtown to play some poker with Tony and Koala.

I had sent a tweet out or two earlier in the day to try to see what Josie and Lightning were up to, knowing that Josie was catching a red-eye back home that evening.  Also knowing that Josie had only one goal left to make her Vegas trip a successful one—earn her own label on this very blog.  But my tweets were ignored for a few hours, until, just as I was about to find a poker room to spend time in, I received a tweet from Lightning that the two of them were headed to the Golden Nugget downtown to play with Tony and Koala. Please note, the tweet from him came after Josie and Lightning had lunch. Without me. Just sayin’.

A second tweet said, “Come join us.  Others welcome too.”  I tweeted back, “Ok, Guess I’ll head over there.”  A few minutes later, another tweet from Lightning, “Can you pick us up?”

My tweet back said, “Sure, Tony, where?”  Lightning later called this response on my part “the tweet of the year.”

I was headed for Bally’s, where I assumed they were, but it turns out they had decided to eat at the fancy, schmanzy, and pricey, Aria buffet and were there instead.  Fortunately, I remembered the back way to the back valet area of the Aria where they said they’d be (a happy coincidence). It’s actually a very circuitous, tricky route to get there from the west side of Tropicana, which is where I was. I bet a lot of locals can’t do it. But I remembered how to do it.  So I found them and I took the two of them downtown.

We got to the Nugget and found Tony and Koala at the same game.  There were two seats open so of course, as the hired help, I was excluded from the cool table and sent to some table in the back of the room.  But as it happened, a third spot opened up at the adults table and I was allowed to join them.  But Koala made me (and Lightning) promise that we would not infringe on the special dinner Tony had arranged with Josie later that evening.

Of course once again, I was seated on the opposite side of the table from Josie.  I was next to Lightning and Koala, which was fine, except neither of them had been asking for the chance to get their own label on my blog.  If Josie was going to be outrageous enough to earn such a distinction (which, as I said, was her #1 goal for this trip, even above winning at poker), I’d have to sit close enough to her to hear her be outrageous.  And possibly play footsie with.

After awhile, I was able to get a seat change so I could sit directly on her right, which was far from ideal.  Josie raises every hand, generally speaking.  I would much prefer to be on her left.  But hey, I wanted to be fair to her and give her the best possible chance to earn that label.  See what a nice guy I am?  I risked losing money just to give her a fair shot at her prized goal.

As I took the seat next to her, I made a comment about doing so even though I was giving her “position” on me.  She nodded and so I said, “And by the way, what is your favorite position?” This was a hanging curve for her to earn that label, but she fouled it off.  All she said was, “Oh, there’s so many…..”

But soon after that, someone at the table (it might have been Lightning, or it might have been a perfect stranger) said that, in a poker context, he was trying to show a little “discipline.”

Josie said, “Oh, you like discipline, huh?”  It was more the way she said that made it so, um, suggestive.  I wish I could duplicate that here.  But the way she said it was highly provocative, I assure you.

Soon thereafter Josie and the guy next to the dealer were discussing “favorite” hands.  I believe Josie was admitting that her favorite hand was Jack/10.  The other guy said he had a favorite hand too.  Before he said what it was, Josie said, “I bet I know what your favorite hand is.  The right one.”  Again, it wasn’t so much what she said but the way she said it. And after saying that to the guy (who she didn’t know from Adam until they started playing together an hour earlier), she turned to me and said, “Write that down.  That will get me a label.”

I didn’t want her to stop trying, but  I knew I already had enough to give her that coveted label on my blog—even tho we never got around to playing footsie.  Well, it was those comments plus the fact that two nights earlier, she had both grabbed my ass and exposed pretty much her entire chest for me at the Mirage.  Actually, I think that may have had more to do with it than the comments at the Nugget, as interesting as those were.

I enjoyed playing with the gang, but I’m not really a big fan of the Golden Nugget poker room.  For one thing—and perhaps the main thing—they have the dreaded button straddle there. But at least in their iteration of it, action starts UTG, not on the small blind, so it’s not quite as much of a crime against humanity as the way they do it at Bally’s.

I was pretty card dead, and knowing that Josie would raise me if I ever limped into a pot, I tightened up more than usual.  But I did have one nice hand.  Since Josie said on her blog that I never played a hand there, this may have happened when Josie and Tony were away for their double-secret, private dinner.  But I had the dreaded pocket kings, and got it all in on a low flop.  The guy who paid me off had pocket queens.  Honestly, I almost fainted when the Kings held up.  I won over $100 just on that one hand.

Josie played only a few hands after returning with Tony from dinner, prefering to get felt up by Rocky Balboa instead. And yes I mean felt up this time, not felted. She soon left for the airport, after giving me a goodbye hug.  I believe her other chauffer, Poker Grump, took her there. Then Lightning, who was under the weather, asked if I was heading back to the Strip, and asked if I could drop him off.  I was hoping he and I could play some more poker that evening somewhere on the strip, but he was ailing too much and just wanted to rest.  So dropped him off and headed to BSC for a rather uneventful poker session. A quiet ending to a fun day.