After a slightly mediocre gig at the Stand (I rocked on Thursday I have to tell you, but tonight I was a bit off top form - this is the way of the comedian) I headed to the casino next door with some of the Stand staff and the other comics, mainly for a drink, but I wasn't going to resist a little flutter.
I was playing Blackjack and holding my own when a young blond man in a suit came and stood next to me. I was a little merry, but he was reeling with his drink and seem confused and mentally absent. He threw five pounds down on the table.
"Do you want five singles or a five pound chip?" asked the croupier.
The man was bamboozled. He said nothing and just swayed a little.
The croupier repeated the question, but the man was too drunk to understand that he was being addressed. I said to him "Do you want 5 one pound chips or one five pound chip mate?" and finally he replied "Five singles." Which meant we could get on.
The drunk idiot then placed all five of his one pound chips in the betting space. "You could have just gone foe one five pound chip then, couldn't you," I pointed out. I was a bit drunk too, but much more mentally alert and annoyed that this man had wasted some of my valuable money losing time.
"I'll do what I like," he told me, "and in any case, very soon I will have won all your money."
"That's not really the point of blackjack. We're all fighting against the bank, rather than competing with each other."
He swayed some more, "Even so," he countered, "I will have your money soon."
"OK, whatever" I mumbled, not wanting to waste my leisure time having to deal with drunk idiots, that's what I do for a living.
We were both beaten in the next hand by the croupier. I still had a stack of chips left, but blondie had lost his fiver.
"Oh dear, you lost," I sarcastically lamented, "Looks like you won't be winning my money after all."
He was angry. "You've lost too!" he pointed out.
"I know, but you said you'd win all my money, but look -I have some money left and you have none. How do you propose to make your evil plan come to fruition?"
He stared at me, unable to come to any reasonable conclusion and started calling me a dick and threatening me.
"Oh shut up!" I ventured.
"No, I won't. You're a dickhead." he told me with supreme lack of self awareness. I knew I was more sober than him and in the right, but he was unable to grasp this, or indeed anything.
An eagle eyed supervisor came across to us and recognised that this man was on the verge of having to leave the casino.
"Please calm down sir," he told him, "Let's not make a scene and let's treat each other with respect."
"It's not me, it's him," the drunkard replied, failing to appraise the situation correctly.
"Well can we all calm down and be respectful?"
"Yes," I said, "I'd like that." I was keen to play on.
"No, we can't, because this bloke is a dickhead," said the blond loser. I pulled a face which demonstrated that my crapulous friend was the one who was being problematic and not me.
"Can you come over here to discuss this with me?" asked the supervisor. The man meeklly followed, only presumably to be ejected from the premises.
It was a sweet victory. Plus I won four pounds on the blackjack (though I would later lose it and a further ten pounds on the roulette). So who is the ultimate loser here?
You decide.
