Wednesday, March 10, 2004

My Sheriff’s Card is about to expire. Ugh!!! While this sounds like such a small thing, to a night creature it’s a drag. The rest of the world thinks that all of us should conform to day time hours…while that may be true in the State of Nowhere, it just ain’t so in Vegas. We are a 24 hour a day town which means the employees are 24 hour a day people too. A few years ago, when this glorious event rolled around, I could call Metro, make an appointment, walk in and skip all the lines, because I was already a card holder, and get through the process within 15 minutes for the small sum of $35.00.

Times have changed. Now I have to go to Metro or a fingerprint shop, get fingerprinted (this is only done during daylight while I would like to be snuggled into the dark and quiet of my bedroom), pay a fee (that varies according to where I have it done), and then purchase a cashier’s check or a money order in the amount of $75, fill out several forms and turn all of that (finger prints included) into employee services where all of it is sent to Metro for processing. Then…hopefully…I will receive my new Sheriff’s Card. I just can’t give a thumbs up to this process…the down side to it is that if I fail to renew, I cannot work…until I do renew, the Time Clock beeps at me each time I clock in and out, reminding me that I must renew. Shit…an alarm clock at work too!

*****

Last week when I came tripping through the room, getting ready to push into a game, there were two guys standing by the Cashier’s Cage, craning their necks at the players on Table 1. Who was up there? Who were the stars?

They recognized Doyle and Jennifer. I told them the player with his back to them in white shirt was Gus Hanson. They queried, “The bald guy?”

“No…he’s not bald, just has his head shaved.”

“Who else?”

“The guy next to him with the blue shirt on is Renee. Celine Dion’s husband.”

They stated, as if they knew the answer, “Doyle wouldn’t play less than $300-$600.”

I said, “Try $1,000-$2,000 or higher.”

Big eyes here…they were so damn excited…next question, “What if we asked them for a picture…not while they’re playing…?”

I replied, “First of all you could never take a picture up there because the Floor Person would stop you…”

“No…what if we saw them away from the table and asked them for a picture, what are they like, would they let us take one?”

Me, “Well it depends on how their mood is for the day, whether they won or lost, or just how they feel in general. They might say yes and then again they might tell you to screw off!”

Believe it or not, they seemed really happy with that answer.

*****