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Three hours later I was up again, sharing my stories with Mrs. Family Man. Considering where I began, where I maxed out and where I finished, she didn’t hold my drunken, gambling absence against me.
She really had to no reason to anyway; our combined wins bought us a couple of extra hands before we were to leave for the airport.
In every previous trip to Vegas, we have lost on Departure Day. It never fails. Up or down, the last day has always been a loser for us. Why we thought this one would be different is beyond me.
Without dragging it out, let’s just say we gave a small fraction of our winnings back. But it was a very, very small fraction, an amount we were prepared to leave behind anyway.
What Las Vegas giveth, Las Vegas taketh away.
But Vegas had been generous enough by then that we didn’t hold it against her.
This trip goes down as one of our best; coming home on the plus side probably has plenty to do with it.
For that I am forever indebted to Mrs. Family Man Muser.
She introduced me to Las Vegas in the first place, made me sit at that table at Binion’s after a first full day of losses, but most importantly of all, she accepted that for most of our Vegas vacation I wore the same white shirt over and over and over again.
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In golf, it is often the one good shot, the one birdied hole, that keeps the weekend hacker coming back for more. On rare occasions when the stars align just right, the bad holes are minimal and the good ones frequent. Those are the rounds we most remember, the rounds we want to talk about, the rounds that bring the average golfer back to the game week after week, in pursuit of the most elusive of golf course commodities: consistency.
A good gambling trip is like that.
Losing bites the big one, but the lure of walking away a winner, with another purple chip, or a pile of greens where once four red ones were, or at worst, some fantastic stories to tell—and to do it all with at least some frequency—is enough to make us want to keep taking chances, and to keep coming back.
The analogy is a good one, particularly fitting in our case considering how our trip ended.
We left Las Vegas on the Saturday, but on the Friday morning Mrs. Family Man joined her father at the Flamingo Sports Book to place a few bets. Some for them. Some for others. Most on hockey. Some on golf.
On Sunday, back at home, we sat together in a semi-melancholic state, reminiscing about the special moments we had shared in the previous few days in Las Vegas. It is always that way for me; it usually takes at least a week to break out of the post-Vegas funk I am always in when we get home.
In any case, in our post-vacation lull we tuned in to The Masters Golf Tournament to see if Mrs. Family Man’s guy might win. The leaderboard fluctuated, up and down her guy went, when finally Bubba Watson—on whom Mrs. Family Man had bet $10 to win—sealed the deal on the second playoff hole.
In the grand scheme, it was a small win—$100—but a significant win nonetheless.
A day earlier, our losses before leaving for the airport, the very small fraction of our winnings that we had left behind: $100.
Everything lost was found again.
- The End -
POSTSCRIPT TO THE EPILOGUE: Nearly two months have passed since the Mrs. and I dashed to the desert for what turned out to be one of our most memorable trips to Las Vegas yet.
Since putting the last period on my original Trip Report and posting it here, I have secretly hoped that a return addition would be required, based on the lost and found theme I followed as I recounted the ups-and-downs and all-round shenanigans that made this trip as good as it was.
Now I am back, and this is why.
On our first full, post-Vegas day back home, the Masters Sunday when the Mrs. cashed in on her Bubba Watson bet, I spent the early morning carefully looking over the Pro Sports Futures betting sheet I brought home with me from The Flamingo, seeking to choose right on a few Stanley Cup Playoff dollars I was going to wager via the in-laws who, much to our jealous chagrin, were still living it up in Las Vegas while we were re-integrating into normal society, normal life, back at home.
A few texts later, all bets were placed, and a few days later when the in-laws stopped in to pay up on the Watson ticket they cashed in for us, they also passed along the tickets for my Stanley Cup predictions.
Round One went exceedingly well, with all four of my choices moving on. That meant I had money riding on four of the final eight teams still vying for Lord Stanley’s fabled mug—a 50 percent chance of cashing in.
Round Two caused the first casualty early on, with the Nashville Predators done in quickly by a pesky team from Phoenix. In the East, my long-shot 30-1 bet on the Washington Capitals looked good for awhile, but they too were ultimately eliminated; unlike Nashville, it took seven hard-fought games that went down to the wire.
That left me with two improbable 20-1 teams playing in the NHL’s Conference Finals, one in the East, one in the West.
In the Western Conference, my dark-horse Los Angeles Kings made quick work of the Coyotes, guaranteeing that at worst, I would have a team to cheer for in the Finals.
In the East, it was a back-and-forth, see-saw battle between the New York Rangers and New Jersey Devils, a series that took seven games and overtime to decide. If my team won, it meant I would have bets on both Stanley Cup finalists, ensuring a $210 return on one of my $10 bets.
Thankfully, the winning goal came only minutes into the fourth period; the last thing I wanted was to be sitting on the edge of my seat for an endless triple-overtime game that would carry on well into the late-night, early-morning hours.
And so it was that when Adam Henrique of the New Jersey Devils tapped the puck home off a mad scramble in the Rangers crease only 70 seconds into the extra frame, my left arm instinctively cut through the air, ironically much like the Statue of Liberty so emblematic of New York, signifying to nobody else but me that, much like Mrs. Chubbs’ Bubba Watson bet of two months prior, my Stanley Cup prognostications had proven fruitful.
Everything lost, found again.
Again.
- THE REAL END -
Good series. I enjoyed reading it :)!
ReplyDeleteGood work - you captured everything perfectly. Looking forward to reading up on our next trip! :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks to both of you. Was fun to relive it in writing, but I much prefer making more memories in Vegas again. Let's make it happen.
ReplyDelete