Can I Borrow Your Wife for a Year?
Provocative Tagline, no?
It was February of 1997. The wife and I went to Lake Tahoe, NV to ski and
gamble. We took around 20 of our friends with us. Lake Tahoe is a blast
with a group of people that you know well and care for. There are four
casinos located right next to each other in Stateline, NV which just happens
to be right on the California border. A street is all that separates it
from South Lake Tahoe, CA. You have Harrah's, Harvey's right across the
street, Horizon down the street on the same side as Harvey's and Mont
Blue (formerly Caesar's Lake Tahoe) across the street from the Horizon
and next to Harrah's. By Las Vegas standards, the casinos are small.
But, their size and the fact that they are situated right next to each
other makes it easy to keep track of everyone and have a great time!
Lake Tahoe is beautiful. It is probably my favorite place on earth.
The skiing is great! There are about 20 ski resorts surrounding the lake.
My favorite is Heavenly. It is also the most convenient as it is located
right about Stateline, NV/South Lake Tahoe, CA. A gondola transports you
up the mountain from downtown, a short walk from the casinos.
Back to the story. The wife and I had been there for a couple of days.
We skied one day, gambled that night and were skiing the next day. She
decided to call it quits at noon while I stayed on the mountain. After
showering, she met up with a friend of ours in Harrah's where we were
staying that year. He asked her if she had ever played roulette and she
told him no. She had no idea how to play. Together, they marched over
to the nearest roulette wheel and in the course of the remaining afternoon,
they torched that wheel for one hell of a win.
I came down off the mountain when they closed the lifts at 4:30. I made
my way back to Harrah's and ran into both of them as I was walking thru the
casino towards the elevators going up to our room so that I could shower
and get cleaned up. The wife runs up to me with two fistfuls of chips!
She had started at the minimum bet and now had $1,600! I asked them both
"how the hell did you win this?" "Playing roulette" the wife replied.
"You don't know how" I said. "He showed me" was her comeback as she
pointed at my friend.
Upon further questioning my wife revealed that she had no idea what
their method of attacking the wheel was. All she could remember was
that in a couple of hours that afternoon they had hit double zero three
times and single zero twice! My friend, a serious veteran gambler who
has a few years on me, told me he has never had a run like that at
roulette before and not since either.
That night and the next night all of friends would periodically walk
up to her wherever they could find her in the casino and rub her head
for luck. It was funny sitting at a blackjack table watching five people
walk by and have them all rub her head. By the end of the second night,
other people were rubbing her head too as she killed blackjack the next day!
Two days later as we were waiting for our flight out of Reno back to
Dallas, the friend who had played roulette with her asked me if he could
borrow her for a year and then bring her back once he had won enough money!
We all had a good laugh at that. My friends' wife agreed to this and promised
that there would be no funny business while she was in their care. That
had to be one of our favorite trips out to Lake Tahoe, a place we try to
get to every winter. Gambling is fun with a group of good friends,
especially when someone gets on a good run.