What Happens in Rovetta Stays in Rovetta

I've always thought I was much too frugal for gambling. Throwing money away in mass quantities never appealed to me much. I never thought that buying lottery tickets was being a good steward of my money.

(However, as a side note I would like to say that Melissa can play the lottery all she wants because when she wins, she and Jenn are going to open up an orphanage in Ukraine and I will get to come play in it. Play on, Melissa; play on.)

I think that although I may have strong convictions in that regard, I am still going to have to stay far away from slot machines.

This is how I came to that conclusion.

I am a big fan of Coke Zero Cherry. And once I get fixated on a drink, well, that is just what I want. Sally Albright wanted her dressing on the side and I want cherry in my coke. Is that really too much to ask? Until FSU starts putting Pepsi in the coke machines, I will just keep finding Coke Zero Cherries. I really don't like anything else that is in them. Well, I was getting ready to go to Russian lit, my most favorite class, and I knew that I was really going to need some caffeine to keep me awake. So, I walked over to the Rovetta building to coke machine row, where seven beautiful coke machines are available for service. I placed my five quarters in and hit "Coke Zero Cherry." Sold out. So I went to the next one. Sold out. #3...4...5, they were all sold out. After #6 I started to get worried. I put in my five quarters in lucky number seven and pushed "Coke Zero Cherry." The dismal red button lit up. No luck. So, I hit "coin return" for the seveth pathetic time. Then, to my surprise, six, not five quarters slid of the machine.

"Must have been chance," I thought. "Someone left their quarter in there."

But in the back of my mind I knew I had heard six quarters hit the bottom of the coin return. There was only one way to find out if I was predestined to get another extra quarter. I picked up my five original quarters (with lucky number six safe in my pocket), and stuck them in again.

"Alright," I thought. "Big money, big money!"

My eyes grew twice their normal size as I watched six quarters fall into my hand. My head started screaming, "I won! I won!" Something momentarily took over my body. I had to do it again. Somehow my logical brain was replaced by this greedy monster who wanted nothing more except to get another extra quarter. "Win the jackpot, Calyn." I would have played all day. (Well, I'm sure at some point I would have realized that to keep doing it would be stealing from the Coca Cola company, but we hadn't gotten to that point yet.) But as I placed my quarters in for the third time and hit "coin return" nothing happened. Only my five original quarters came out. Something clicked in my head. My normal, logical self returned. I slapped myself. "Get a hold of yourself, Calyn."

It was at that point that I realized I would never be visiting the state of Nevada. The first and most obvious reason of course being the aliens, but I think that the Danny Ocean in me would not be able to control myself in the Mirage. I think I'll just keep playing Texas Hold 'Em with M&M's.

Jenna drew some graffiti on my facebook wall. It is pretty much amazing.