Remember that Time I Almost Fought that Casino Pit Boss?

You probably don't, but I sure do. It was Saturday, our last full day in Vegas.  We decided to go a bit further down the Strip than we had before.  So, lured by the mysteriousness of the North Strip, and the promise of $3 blackjack, the Thoresons loaded up into two cabs and trekked up to Circus Circus.  Most of the big casinos on the Strip have themes.  Ours was themed like New York City, Caesar's is all Ancient Rome, the Wynn was Asian-inspired...you get the idea.  Using the incredible deductive reasoning skills I am sure you were all blessed with, I think you can imagine what theme awaited us at Circus Circus....well, you're wrong!  The casino was almost entirely non-themed!  I was expected cocktail waitresses in clown make-up, balloons, merry-go-rounds...but there was nothing!  Just drab carpet and a lot of lights.  Though I was fully prepared to punch the first clown that got in my face, I was actually a little disappointed with the lack of effort on the part of the casino designer.  You'd think decorating a place--that is already very reminiscent of a giant circus--like a circus would be cake.  Perhaps I am wrong here.

Anyway, Circus Circus was a bit of a let down, and there was no $3 blackjack.  So we went across the parking lot to Slots-A-Fun, Circus Circus's seedy annex.  The name on the sign even read "Slots-A-Fun."  Truth.  Not even "Slots-O-Fun," which would be, not correct, but at least a more acceptable abbreviation.  We traipsed inside and found a smaller version of Circus Circus.  The casino was probably 1/10 of the size of the casino at NY NY and smelled faintly of cigarettes, sweat, and whatever you find at rock bottom.  After a cursory lap around the tables, we settled at $3 blackjack where an old geezer named Arch slowly dealt the hands.  I started with $30, thinking, hopefully at $3 a pop, I will lose the money more slowly.  Which, indeed, is what eventually happened.  At the end of the first two hours, I was actually up by six bucks.

A few hands after we began, Arch was sent to another table, and Chris, a middle aged, fast talking Asian lady started dealing.  She was a good dealer--and by good I mean, faster than Arch--but she had a mouth like an auctioneer.  She was with us for maybe 15 minutes, and we probably only played about 4 hands, because she kept telling us how we were going to learn so much from her, and catcalling to my brother.  Soon after she started dealing, we hit a bit of a snafu.  She was dealing the second cards, past my dad, me, Emily and onto Mike.  She dealt him an Ace, which, combined with the face card he already had, gave him blackjack.  Suddenly, I realize Chris has made a mistake.  She accidentally dealt two cards instead of one.  But I don't say anything because that means Mike would lose blackjack and the annoying guy next to him would get his Ace (and a blackjack too).  But Chris notices, and calls the pit boss over.  Suddenly everyone is talking.  Chris separates the cards, and we see that there are in fact two aces in a row, meaning both Mike and the annoying guy would've had blackjack.  Everyone begins talking again.  The pit boss tells me, since I have the lowest hand (a 15), I can chose to play the hand or not.

Now, let's think about this.  I'm playing $3 blackjack in a seedy casino with my family.  Probably, I'm no ace at gambling.  Probably, I haven't done a lot of gambling in the past.  And probably, when you throw around casino jargon, I'm not going to understand what you're talking about.  All of these things were the case.  So when the boss tells me its my decision to play or not, I'm thinking he means I decide whether or not I want a re-deal.  So of course I say no.  Two people on the table have blackjack--I'm not gonna mess that up over a lousy 15!  The boss looks at me, and says, "Really, you want to play that?"  Kind of obnoxiously.  I say, yes.  Finally Chris explains that I can take down my bet without messing up the cards.  So I do that.  This angers the boss.  He doesn't understand why I didn't do that in the first place.  We get into a heated conversation. He's pretty much yelling at me for not understanding what he meant.  And I'm not into taking heat from some second-rate casinos pit boss skeezebag.  So I cop an attitude.  Cause if there's one thing I've learned since working at Uno's, its how to cop an attitude.  I narrow my eyes.  I curl back my lip.  I look at him like I can't even believe he has the nerve to speak to me.  And I say, "I'm sorry, (as in ex-cuse me?) I didn't understand what you were saying."  And he looks right at me and goes, "Well I was speaking clearly."  Like I'm some sort of idiot for not understanding the meaning of his words when everyone is talking at me, and I have never encountered this situation before.  My family can tell you, I was not pleased with this guy.  Like, who are you?  I'm here, with my family, spending money in your establishment, and you're going to give me lip, when it was your dealer who messed up?  Cause you know, if I decided to leave and take my family and my money down to the Belagio, you'd lose half the people in your casino, and I'd have pit bosses crawling all over themselves apologizing for the mistake.

But I guess that's what you can expect from $3 blackjack at Slots-A-Fun.  Slimy pit bosses and dealers who either lost their skills twelve years ago, or spit too much talk to be tolerated by any of the big time casinos.  You really do get what you pay for.  Lessons learned in Vegas, I guess.