January 14, 2004. Slacker…me that is. No energy or thought for writing, even though there are things to write about. Monday night I started at the tail end of the room, Table 27, that’s the end because in dealing lingo, you won’t see a bright spot for hours. High Limit had my name written all over it. The room was fairly quiet and the game on Table 1 was so noisy, everyone in the room could hear the hooting and uproar up there.

As I stood behind the dealer on Table 1, a 30ish looking guy came dancing and singing his way up from the Cage area, watching me. His singing was loud and he did a mini strip as he approached, taking off his silk jacket in a manner that would go over well at Glitter Gulch, he then exposed a crappy sweatshirt with the sleeves cut out. Still singing, he pulled back the sweatshirt to show his flabby looking breast.

He stopped right in front of me, staring at me, and I laughed, “What’s your name?”

“James,” he declared, as he put his hand out to shake mine. I shook his hand, he held on to mine a little too long, and I extracted myself from his grasp as I sat down in the Box.

He was the reason for all the noise and excitement on Table 1. They were playing $300-$600 Mixed Games and I made more mistakes in this game than I’ve made in the last six months put together.

James kept singing. When he quit, Mike M. sitting right across from me, took off at the top of his lungs, it went something like this, “They want to give away their money, why don’t they give it to me? I’m here to take it!” with his arms opened up in an operatic stance to me, and his gaze riveted on my face.

I started laughing.

Every other word was fuck or fucker or asshole and more…you get the picture. James did all kinds of screeching, howling, laughing, growling, and the whole game was in a continuous uproar.

Mike rubbed my leg with his foot under the table so he could catch my eye. I looked up, he kept giving me the ‘he’s such an idiot look’ meaning James. I couldn’t help but laugh. Everything was in an uproar.

I failed to give Arturo back $50 when he was the Small Blind and while he stopped me, I was in the midst of dealing the first draw of Deuce to 7 to Brad and Cuckoo. Needless to say, I went into Brain Lock and burned, then spun off three cards and picked them up as if I was to put up a Flop, exposing one of the cards.

“Decision, Table 1!”

Shuffle those cards and the stub, then proceed. Cuckoo won the pot and everyone hooted and jeered because the dealer had to make a mistake for Cuckoo to win.

Mike even reached out and put his hands over the pot to keep me from pushing it as he stated, “It’s a mistake, Cuckoo can’t win a pot.”

I chastised Mike by saying, “Don’t do that. You know better than to put your hand on the pot.”

The other players jumped his case too, much worse than I did.

It was a comedy of errors. As soon as I made the first mistake, I was off and running, never regaining my credibility factor to myself, let alone to the players. I apologized but they could have cared less, they were busy beating each other up, verbally and with the chip wars.

I called in sick on Tuesday night, yes…I really was and not just in the head.

Tonight I didn’t have to deal to James but he was there, same game scenario, same noise. Another player in a $15-$30 Holdem game made as much noise as James so it was happening in two different sections of the room. Stereo, hurts in two places at once.