"There's No Such Thing as a Fat Midget"

(This is the second part of the story I started last time (see here).  We pick up right where we left off.  Events occur in real time.)

As I was saying, after the discussion of strip clubs had run its course, the New Yawker had an interesting comment.  He piped in with, “I’m personally not into strip clubs.  I’m into fat women.  And midgets.  I’m really into fat midgets.”

This got everyone laughing and Kate then of course revealed to us that that a couple of nights earlier, she and her girlfriend had gone to the midget nightclub right in the casino.

Yes, I haven’t mentioned it because, unlike the New Yawker, I’m not into midgets (I have nothing against them, I just don’t find them inherently funny), but right there in the MGM, late last year, they opened a club that features midgets.  It’s called Beacher’s Madhouse and it is a midget burlesque show.  I believe that some of the burlesque stuff—i.e., the semi nude girls—is with normal sized woman.  And some is midgets.

Although I haven’t seen the show, I knew about it, especially because just a few weeks earlier, I had heard Dennis, who was still dealing at this table, tell some people that he and his ladyfriend had attended the show (or club, I’m not sure which word fits better).  He had thoroughly enjoyed himself.

Poor New Yawker had been staying at the hotel for days and somehow had no clue about the club’s existence.  Suddenly, he was thinking about cancelling his flight back home so he could take in the show.

He may have been kidding, I was never certain whether he was kidding about being into fat midgets.  For that matter, he might have been familiar with the club too.

But we all found it funny that he claimed to have this rather odd taste in his fantasy life, and of course Kate was only too happy to describe the place for us.

That is, after she claimed that, "There’s no such thing as a fat midget."  She didn’t think they existed.  This caused a debate for some time, about whether or not fat midgets existed.  No consensus was reached, but Kate was insisting to the end that she’d never seen one.

But she enjoyed the show, particularly the midget who was on a wire and serving drinks by “flying” through the air. 

A bit later, after the subject had changed, The New Yawker started to say, “I’m not into—“ And Dennis cut him off. “We know what you’re into.”

Now as I mentioned, this was a club night and Kate had commented on how the room is in a nice location—you can see all the club goers coming and going to the club.  Gee, why didn’t I think of that?  But she had her back to the pedestrian traffic.  Dennis observed that when you see the people walk in the direction of the club, they’re obviously planning on going into it.  But those people you see walking away from it (at least early in the evening)?  Those are the folks that couldn’t get into the club for whatever reason and were heading to Beacher’s to see the midgets as a consolation prize.  I do recall hearing Dennis say that the night he went to Beacher’s, he at first tried to go to the nightclub but, even with his employee discount, it was so expensive he decided to settle for midgets instead.

Kate told the story of some guy getting kicked out of Beacher’s for talking to her.  Security felt that the guy was bothering her even though she never complained.  Weird.  We surmised that there may have been another reason for the guy getting escorted out.

But Kate made it clear she could be really brutal to guys who were bothering her.  One guy wouldn’t leave her alone once and finally she said to him, “Could you please back off?  I’m starting to itch.

She was at the pool during the day and some 20-something guy was horsing around, and threw a pool chair into the water.  Trouble was, Kate’s towel was on the chair—and wrapped in the towel was her purse with her cell phone.  Luckily the phone was in a water tight bag and it was fine.  The guy, scared to death when Kate started berating him, jumped into the pool to fish out her purse.  Apparently, Kate ripped him a new one and nearly scared the guy to death.

She did say that, at the pool, “it was all so phony.”  I asked, “the people or the bodies?”  She said, “Both.  All the girls are out there comparing themselves to each other.”

In many ways, Kate was the ideal woman.  She loves poker and she loves Vegas.  Despite the fact that it’s a 4 -1/2 hour flight from Toronto, she comes to Vegas frequently, and sometimes at the last minute.  And she stays at the MGM, which isn’t cheap. She gets deals on cheap airfare, she said. Sometimes she just comes for a long weekend.  I thought it was a long trip for just a weekend but when Brent was dealing, he pointed out that, if the price of the airfare isn’t a problem for you, it’s really no different than someone from L.A. driving up to Vegas for a long weekend, which I used to do quite a bit when I had a “normal” job.  I told Kate that she had to be some kind of highly paid doctor or lawyer to afford all those trips to Vegas from Toronto.  She laughed.  She only gave a vague hint about what her occupation was.

In fact, she had made a last minute decision to come to Vegas this particular weekend.  She had four days off work (Good Friday/Easter weekend) and booked the flights for her girlfriend and herself with about a ½ hour to spare in order for them to pack and head to the airport.  The interesting thing was that her girlfriend had never been to Vegas before.  And didn’t know how to play any of the games.  Her friend said no, but when Kate showed her the tickets she’d already purchased, she threw her stuff in a suitcase and headed to the airport with Kate.

I was shocked when she said she remembered when they had the Yellow Brick Road and the Emerald City at the front (Strip) entrance of the MGM.  That was when they first opened.  I said she was too young to remember that.  But she said she first came to Vegas with her parents when she was 12 years old. This was back when they were trying to make Vegas “family friendly.” She fell in love with the city right then and there, even tho she obviously couldn’t gamble.  I guess it’s fair to say she’s always loved Vegas.

Of course I had to ask how she got into poker.   It seems that she and her ex-fiancée used to watch poker on TV every week.  She never played but she apparently enjoying watching.  Later, after they broke it off, she heard about a poker tournament somewhere and decided to give it a shot, even though she’d never actually played before.  She did well enough to keep at it, and realized it was a lot more fun to play than to watch.

Another player at the table was a serviceman who had just gotten married—right there in Vegas—a few nights earlier. Just as we started teasing him about playing poker—without his wife—on his honeymoon, he informed us that his wife was also in the service and in fact she was already on a flight back to Europe. He had a few nights in Vegas before being sent to the other part of the world (far away from both Vegas and his wife).

Somehow the subject of prostitution came up, perhaps when we were discussing strip clubs.  Kate said that the U.S. is the only country in the world where prostitution isn’t legal.  Huh?  I was sure that wasn’t true.  But I asked if it was legal in Canada and it is (I didn’t know that). Same thing in Australia (didn’t know that either).  Kate seemed to know a lot about legalized prostitution.

Also an expert on legal prostitution around the world was the newly married serviceman.  He said that in most of the places he’s been stationed around the world, it’s legal. He also said that at a lot of the Asian countries, there’s really no difference between the strip clubs and the brothels (and it’s all legal).  But he made a funny observation.  In some of the clubs he’s been to, the girls would charge like $30 for “full service,” but $50 for a lap-dance.  He said, “I’m thinking, ‘Are you so lazy you don’t want to dance, you just want to lie back?”

Kate found that interesting. “The strip clubs offer ‘full service’?” He assured her that was the case.  And so Kate asked, “And they actually charged less for full service than a lap dance?”  The serviceman nodded.  I have to say, the way she said “full service” reminded me of a blog post I did (see here). 

Kate was reminded of a scene she witnessed at the Planet Hollywood poker room.  A guy had been playing poker and then apparently went off with a hooker. Apparently he picked her up either in or very near the poker room.  Oh my.  A poker player involved with a hooker?  Can you imagine such a thing?  Anyway, apparently, when he got the girl up to his room, she suggested he take a shower.  When he got out of the shower, the girl was gone. So was his wallet and his watch.  He came back downstairs and back to the poker room where he asked them to call security and/or the police.  And he unashamedly told the story to everyone in the room.  That must have been pretty funny.  I assume he had thrown some clothes back on before coming back down.  Kate would have told us if he come back to the poker room dripping wet and naked.

At one point, it suddenly occurred to me that as an Australian, she probably didn’t have a childhood love of the most popular sport in Canada—hockey.  I ask her if she was now a hockey fan and she said no, though she had gone to some hockey games and enjoyed herself, even though she didn’t really understand it.  I asked her if she had had any exposure to hockey in Australia and she said she didn’t think the country even had a hockey team.  I did inquire if they had Australian Rules Football in Canada, and she wasn’t aware of it.

But she does have a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey that she says comes in handy when she’s in Vegas.  She claimed that as long as she wears that shirt, the time-share people never bother her.  She didn’t know why that was but she knew it was the case.

Now, soon after I had arrived to the table, I saw Kate’s girlfriend come by to see how she was doing.  She took off.  But a few hours later, Kate was surprised that her friend hadn’t returned; she was supposed to check in with her every hour or so.  She knew that her friend wouldn’t be gambling unless she was adventurous enough to play some slots.  No live games for sure.  Kate said she loved to people watch and was likely just doing that.

“Or maybe, she’s talking to some guys in the bar.  It’s either that or she’s up in the room watching TV.”

I said, “Or perhaps she’s up in the room with a guy.”

“No, no.  There’s zero chance of that happening, zero.  She would not take a guy to her room.  She might be up in the room watching TV, but she’d never take a guy there.”

Then she added, without prompting, that in all the many times she’d come to Vegas, she herself had never had a guy in her room—and she never would.  Not possible.  She said she had never gotten herself in any kind of trouble while in Vegas, she was always prim and proper.  “I never misbehave in Vegas.”  Hmm, so I guess, not the perfect woman after all!

Well, I must admit, the whole time she was there, she didn’t have a drop of alcohol.  I believe she was drinking coffee.

I thought of a case where she might make an exception.  “Well, maybe you’ll get married in Vegas, or have your honeymoon here, and then you would have a man up in your room!”

“No, I would never get married here.  I’d never honeymoon here.  What if I got married here?    What if it doesn’t work out?  Vegas would always be the place I got married.  It would ruin Vegas for me.”

I said, “Well that’s going into marriage with a positive attitude.”

She said, “Well, you never know.  You just can’t ruin Vegas.”

Then she commented to the serviceman, “That’s why I find it so surprising you got married here.  Vegas will always be the place you got married. I hope it’s never an issue for you, that it doesn’t someday ruin Vegas for you.”  The serviceman wasn’t concerned about that.

Since this is a serious poker blog, I guess I ought to describe at least one hand of poker, right?  I started this hand with about $120 in front of me. There was a straddle.  First in, I raised to $12 with pocket 10’s.  Three players called, including Kate. The flop was 9-high on a pretty dry board. I led out for $35. The next guy, a relatively new player to the table, went all in.  He had me covered.  Kate thought about it a bit and folded.  The straddler folded. 

The size of the pot made it a pretty easy call for me, so I that’s what I did.  I was hoping the guy only had top pair and not a bigger hand.  We didn’t show.  No big cards hit the board and he showed pocket 8’s.  My 10’s were good. It was a nice pot. 

Suddenly Kate’s cheery disposition disappeared.  In fact, she looked a bit ill.  “Why was I such a wimp there?  I was so afraid….I’ve been having my Aces cracked so often.”

I was shocked.  “You had Aces?”  She assured me she had.  “And you didn’t three-bet me?  Why not?” 

“I’ve just had such bad luck with Aces this trip.  I was scared.”

Wow.  I mean, if it was pocket Kings, I could understand, but Aces?  She had played fairly tight all night, if she had come over the top preflop, I likely would have folded (depending on the size of her bet I suppose).  And of course, if she called the guy’s all in on the flop she would have taken all my chips.

I actually said to her, “You’re so cute and so nice, I actually do feel a little guilty about that.  Just a little.”

I had to work the next day so as much fun as I was having, I had to take my leave.  I said goodbye to everyone, and then said to Kate, “You were an absolute delight.  When you move to the U.S., I’ll see you at the Bike.”  She nodded and added, “Or back here again.”

I didn’t pay all that much attention to the poker, and lost a tiny bit of money, but it was really fun session. I sure do hope I run into Kate again.