by "Buck"

December 11, 2003

ROAD TRIP - I spent the weekend in Wheeling, West Virginia and got my first real taste of a casino.  I stayed at the Wheeling Island Hotel.  This is an actual island, although it's in the middle of the Ohio River rather than the South Seas.  The dog track, Wheeling Downs has seized upon the Island Paradise theme.  Everything looked very Polynesian-with the exception of the hotel staff that unfortunately looked very West Virginian.  I was there for three days and never realized they do actually have a race track where dogs are run.  It's painfully obvious that this is nothing more than a slot machine Mecca.  It was also obvious that at this hotel, the single amenity offered is gambling.  There is no pool, no hot tub, no exercise room.. Nothing.  Just the slot parlor.  Even the bar has video slot machines built in and if you want to sit there and drink-you better be feeding the machine.

WHAT THE HELL - I don't gamble much.  I always figured it was a losing proposition.  I mean really, this place doesn't stay in business by sending away multi-millionaires who've gotten rich after a weekend at their place.  I did gamble away $15.  I considered that obligatory to the full experience.  I played five-dollars at the bar and lost that in about 15-minutes.  I stuck another ten-bucks into a blackjack machine out on the casino floor.  My buddy claims to have read some book and knows the odds of blackjack by heart.  I allowed him to guide me using "the system."  That ten bucks disappeared in about 20-minutes.  He was at a machine beside me playing the same game.  I was down 10 dollars from the get go, he immediately won 110 dollars and proceeded to lose it back in a half hour.  After watching this I'm convinced the games are somehow rigged.  A huge chunk of the West Virginia state budget is tied up in this shit and the gambling lobbyists control the statehouse.  Therefore, I doubt there's any strict regulation of these games and they are likely all geared toward the house.

PITIFUL - I realize to some gambling is an amusement.  I saw a few of those kinds of folks.  People like me who blew a few bucks.  I also saw exponentially more people who were of little means to be sitting there pouring cash-most of it probably from a government check-into a hole.  What the hell?   These people are absolutely hypnotized by the whirling lights and bells and whistles.  Nobody talks-it's not a social event at all.  Nobody laughs.  It's simply a constant stare into a video monitor.  There's a low level hum that is constant throughout the place and I had a very uneasy feeling about the whole thing. There are cameras everywhere and I just felt strange walking around and looking over the shoulders of 80 year old women who were dropping quarters down a slot at $5 a spin.  The whole thing was really sad.  I cannot imagine how I would act in a TRUE gambling environment like Vegas or Atlantic City.  That would be total chaos for a hillbilly like me.

SHIT THAT BOTHERS ME - In the spirit of the holidays I've decided to put on my best Scrooge attitude and air out shit that pisses me off.

--I don't like it when people at the drive thru window tell me to pull up to the "cripple spot" and wait while they finish preparing my Number 6 with cheese and mayo.
 
--I hate it when I'm forced to pay an ATM fee to retrieve my own money.

--I hate trying to pay at the pump and when I'm done the machine says "See attendant for receipt."  Why the fuck did I go through the whole drill of inserting the card to save time if I'm going to have to go inside?

--I hate people who have so little time on their hands they'll get into an argument over Pepsi vs. Coke.  Get a fucking life and give me and R-C Cola.

--I hate people who come up to me in a mall with a clipboard.  I hate people with clipboards who persist in their efforts to ask me probing questions about which I like best.. Coke or Pepsi.  Even after I've told them to Go Fuck Yourself.

--I hate modern art.

--I hate restaurant workers that expect a tip when I did all the work.  I don't tip at restaurants where I refilled my own glass and filled my own plate at the buffet table.  If she takes the order, she brings the food, and she does the follow up to refill the glass-then I'll tip.  If she does it well, I'll enhance the tip.  If you're expecting 15-percent for showing me where to find the plates...Go Fuck Yourself.

--I hate France.  This isn't a newfound hate with recent world events---I've had a deep rooted hatred for those arrogant cowards since I was in high school.  Once on a vacation trip I ran across a couple of them and they busted on me at one of our great National Parks.  My dad had to subdue me when I threatened to kick the shit out of them.  Ever since, the French can Go Fuck Themselves (which I'm told they do)
    
--I hate malls.
    
--I hate shopping.
    
--I hate walking around a mall acting like I'm shopping.

Well, glad I got all that out of my system.  Maybe now I can have a happier holiday.

CRAZY NAKEDNESS - As I mentioned earlier, the one amenity the casino hotel offered was gambling.  They wanted so desperately for you to spend your cash at the machines that the TV selections in the room were severely limited.  I wanted to watch a ball game and decided to go to a bar.  However, the only one we could find open was a titty bar near the hotel.  Against my better judgment I went in.  I was in several strip bars in college and I must say in the last decade the quality of dancers has drastically dropped off-while the talent level has increased.  I realize it's a matter of pure taste, but from my personal standpoint---I'm not turned on by a pierced labia.   I just can't find that attractive.  Although her moves on the pole were definitely an 8 on the 1-to-10 scale.  She must have been a circus performer in a previous life.

BCS - What the hell is up with this college football horseshit?   Oklahoma is considered the number one team in the BCS and will play for the national title.   So they could be national champs, but did not win their conference championship.   There's a great system to avoid a conflict.   Play it off or go fuck yourself.

MILL RAT BAR - I finally concluded in the strip bar that there was going to be no watching of a football game while scantly clad women served overpriced, watered down drinks and others paraded around their snatch so near my face that the aroma could be detected.  So we left.  Not that I mind a little skin, I just wanted to watch the game in peaces and these big boobs kept bumming dollars.  I might as well have gone to the fucking casino. Therefore I left the bar and the Island.  I went into the heart of downtown Wheeling.  It's a steel mill town and I've never seen so many little neighborhood beer joints.   I think in this part of the world they call them "beer gardens."   I went into one.  There were three men in there who were obviously retired steel workers with names ending in ".owski"  They talked with that Pittsburgh drawl in which the long-E is non-existent, it's pronounced with the short-I sound for those who own a Hooked on Phonics program.  One of them talked with one of those strange devices that he puts up to his throat and speaks like a robot.  Scary.  The barmaid at this establishment was without question the HOTTEST 40 year old woman I've ever seen in my life.  She was put together like a brick shithouse with the door slung open.  Good Gracious why was she wasting all that cake in this dive....she could have made a mint in that other place.  For the most part it was an enjoyable conclusion to the evening.  I had the game on the tube, a hot barmaid answering my almost every need, and only an occasional annoyance from robot-man with his drunken ramblings through a hand-held, electronic throat gizmo about his time in Korea.  They were also playing country music on the juke-box.  I know that pisses off a lot of you-but it was pleasing to me.

CONCLUSION - It helps to experience new things.  I haven't led a sheltered life, but I also haven't been exposed to as many things as some of you. Therefore sit back and be entertained when I have something that's new to me to share with you.  The Wheeling Road trip was definitely a new experience on many fronts.

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