This post is in honor of today being Valentine’s Day. As I mentioned here, I am not in Vegas today, but I was in Vegas last year for this most romantic of all holidays. This story took place exactly one year ago today, Valentine’s Day, 2011.
On this day, I found myself at LC2. In honor of the day, some of the dealers had managed to add some kind of red to their wardrobe. Apparently, you are supposed to wear red on Valentine’s Day, just as you are supposed to wear green on St. Patrick’s Day.
The uniforms the poker dealers wear at LC2 are the typical drab, boring mono-colored shirt and black pants. Some of the ladies had added a red ribbon, or had red earrings, or perhaps had red nail polish. Even one of the male dealers got in the spirit. He wore a red flashing heart on his shirt. Or it was supposed to be flashing. Apparently the battery died and it stopped flashing while he was dealing at my table. Someone pointed that out to him and he said, “Yeah, the battery died. But at least I have a heart on.”
I giggled. And in fact, I was the only one who got his joke, which he acknowledged. “At least Rob got it.” I actually remember that about a zillion years ago, Doc Severinsen used that line with Johnny back when Johnny Carson was The Tonight Show. At the time, it was rather a risqué joke for network television.
Anyway, one of the female dealers at LC2 is Jessica, a young, very attractive blonde. She has a very pretty face and a killer smile. She appeared to have a really good figure, but it was harder to tell about that since poker dealer uniforms are not designed to show off a lady’s physical assets—nor should they be (did I just write that?).
But I did discover that her figure was even better than I could possibly imagine (and I have a very, very good imagination) when I saw her out of uniform one day—no not that way, dammit). One time, I was at LC2 waiting for my name to be called and I saw an off-duty Jessica swing by to say hello to her colleagues. On this day, Jessica was apparently all dressed up for a night on the town. Wow. And I do mean Wow.
Now when I say dressed up, I mean dressed up. She was dressed to the nines, as they say. She was wearing a short, tight black dress. It was low-cut too off course, but not as extremely low-cut as the most extreme you see in Vegas. It was classily low-cut. The dress answered every question I had about Jessica’s figure….it was awesome. She had curves everywhere a woman is supposed to have curves, and then some. Additionally, she had her long blonde hair running down to her shoulder all on one side, and it was absolutely stunning look for her.
It looked to me that when she was getting ready for the evening, she put her whole look together with only one thought in mind….that she was going to snap the necks of every man she passed by trying to get a second look at her.
Sitting there, watching her chat with her co-workers, I was actually kind of mesmerized. Then at one point she was standing there by herself, as all her colleagues were busy helping patrons. I found myself walking over to talk to her. I couldn’t help myself.
I thought Jessica would recognize me even though I knew she wouldn’t know my name. You see, LC2 is a locals casino where most of the poker players are there almost on a daily basis. The dealers go to a poker table and they probably know the first and last names of at least 9 of the ten players there. They also know the names of the spouses, their children, their grandchildren, and their pets. I did say grandchildren. The reason most of these folks can play poker so much is that they are retired. Some have been retired for a long time. I stand out because while I am there often for an out-of-towner, I am a virtual stranger as compared to the 95% of their clientele.
But she had dealt to me enough times that even if she didn’t know me as well as the regular regulars, I still would look familiar to Jessica, I thought But just to make certain she didn’t think I was just some strange, dirty old-man trying to hit on her, I made sure I addressed her by name.
When I got over to her, I said, “Jessica, I just felt compelled to come over here and tell you how sensational you look. You look great, just awesome.” Now, I had no idea how she would take that. A woman capable of looking this good is surely used to guys telling how great she looks, right? Would she care what some old guy she’s dealt a few hands of poker to thought about how she looked? She certainly wasn't dressing for me. Or would she fear I was trying to hit on her? I was somewhat concerned about how she’d react.
No worries. She gave me a huge smile (did I mention she has a great smile?) and thanked me. I returned to my seat quickly to wait for a game. I didn’t want there to be any doubt in her mind I had no other purpose than to pay her that much deserved compliment. But I can say this. The next several times she saw me at LC2, whether to come to my table to deal or just as we she was passing by and spotted me, she said hi and flashed that million dollar smile at me.
Sorry about the digression, but I was trying to paint a picture. Imagine that Jessica coming to the table on Valentine’s Day in her drab poker dealers uniform, wearing no red whatsoever. She says hello to everyone and they do likewise. As I recall, I am probably the youngest person at the table (except for Jessica) and likely the only non-regular (meaning someone who comes to the room at least 3 times a week, every week). It was all men. There are plenty of women who are regulars in the room, but this particular table was all male, save for Jessica.
There was some chit-chat and then Jessica took a look at this motley crew and said, “Where is all your Valentine’s Day spirit, guys? How come no one is wearing red?” One or two of the guys pointed out that they were wearing red, but then she spoke directly to one of the most regular regulars at that table. “How about you, John? Where’s your red?”
John, or whatever his name was because I honestly don’t remember, said, “I’m wearing red socks. You just can’t see it.”
Jessica replied, “All right then.”
But John had noticed that Jessica was showing no red either. “What about you? You’re not wearing red!”
Jessica replied, “I am too. You just can’t see it.”
Every one of the old farts at the table, myself included, snickered like a bunch of high school boys. You know what we were thinking.
Jessica seemed embarrassed, but you know, not really that embarrassed. She said, “No, I’m wearing red socks. I have red socks on. That’s what I meant. Come on.”
None of us were buying. There were comments like “sure” and “right” and “yeah, I’ll bet”, but she just smiled. Finally John said to her, “You know what we’re thinking about now, right? You got us all thinking about it.” She just shook her head as if she was surprised by the dirty minds she was in the presence of.
I have no idea if Jessica was wearing red underwear that day. But I would bet plenty that Jessica was intentionally being provocative with her statement, the way she phrased it. Since the guy had just said that you couldn’t see his red, because it was his socks, the most natural comeback to his question would have been, “I’m wearing red socks too.” Would have been short and simple and it would have come naturally to her. Instead, she phrased it in such a way that all the guys there were indeed thinking about her undies. And that was very intentional, I’m sure.
One more reason I’ll always think of Jessica as “sensational.”
Happy Valentine’s Day.
