You Gotta Know When to Hold ‘Em

This past week/end I spent the  majority of my time in a representative assembly for the teachers’ union. I was plunked down on a chair in a sardine type environment without any wiggle room for my elbows or knees. I was within distance of the two lovely members of my group to throw sunflower seeds at me and squirt  me with their water bottle (numb skulls).

During this time, the proceedings can be very tedious. Ever watch the Jerry Lewis telethon as a kid and want to stab yourself in the eye ? Ever watch the government channels with the old people talking. And talking. And talking some more? Well, that MIGHT come close to what I sat through for 10 hours a day. I totally needed an ADHD butt cushion to keep me from wiggling around.

To combat the boredom and the absolute need to stab oneself in the eye, we bring books to read, papers to grade, iPods to listen to like last year, and the set up convention people even leave decks of cards out to play.

I played rummy with Amy for quite some time and when I finished my book, Tiffany taught me how to play a solataire game. Essentially the gist of it is to take four cards, if the outer two cars are of the same suit, you discard the middle two. If the outer two cards are the SAME number/etc. then you get to discard the four. If there is no match then you draw a card from the pile and look at the four cards on the right, and so on and so forth until you discard them all or have a handful of cards. You want to get rid of the entire deck into the discard.

SO, Tiff wins right before she shows me. She is ECSTATIC over the win. Amy and Mark have been playing for the last few days and Amy says she has been playing for 35 years and has yet to win yet. I get the gist of it, then start playing. Tiff is watching and so is Amy. The conversation goes like this:

Tiffany: So it is exciting to win, you will play a million hands and never win.

Me: What if you win on the first try?

Tiffany: Oh, you won’t. *snicker*

I keep playing and I am doing really well. I look at her and she snickers again. Finally, I have four cards in my hand left. I look at her and she looks at my cards. Then, smacks me in the arm. Hard. She and Amy called me a few names and then told Mark who then called me a few more. Tiff told me to buy a lottery ticket and Mark reitterated that later.

Guess you gotta know how to hold ‘em.

Well, or it is just dumb ass luck since I haven’t won again.