When I got up today, I thought I would be screaming, “Help! Throw out a rope…I’m on my way to Kansas and my name isn’t Dorothy!”

The wind was doing it’s terminal rip, snort, shred, huff and puff and blow your house down.

But tonight…ahhhh…tonight, the air is incredible, a delicate, tantalizing, wisp of satin that moves across your flesh, just cool enough to raise your nipples and send a quivering shiver across your thoughts. It’s a beautiful night in Vegas. The perfect night to savor life, the stars, what we are and aren’t, and the terminal, neverending question…why? That’s how I spend quite a bit of my brain waves…trying to sort out why. It doesn’t really matter to anyone but me.

Why does it matter to me? Who the hell knows? I just keep trying to sort through it and in doing so, I sometimes get a glimpse of myself.

In the middle of all of the whys, I find myself watching and listening to people involved in poker. Sometimes it’s incredibly funny. Other times it’s so sick that I have to laugh or I’d cry. And other times, it’s like watching little scenes of life unfold in front of me.

Well tonight, for some reason unknown to me, I was B-I-T-C-H-Y! That’s not my normal mode. Most of the time I listen to/watch what’s going on around me and just digest it. But tonight I was on a rant and irritated…still…the good news is I was laughing while I was irritated. And I knew I was bitchy. That’s a bonus believe it or not. If you’re bitchy and you don’t know it, you can create all kinds of havoc for yourself and those around you. But if you know you’re bitchy, you kind of tone it down and try to hold your tongue while your brain is screaming, “Fuck all of you fuckers!”

Yup! That’s how I felt through the first part of my shift. Of course I drew the Poker Pit instead of Tournament for my start in the line-up. Yesterday was the same scenario, the day before was the same scenario.

There’s a little bit of phlugh (phlegm with ugh in it) going on in the dealer’s line up. The rumor is out that upper managment thought the regular/experienced dealers should deal the Black chips games and the new dealers should deal the tournament. HOLY SHIT! Why would that be? The nudge from upper managment was the new dealers didn’t know how to deal the Black Chips games and with our experience, we should be making enough out of the Black Chip games that it would compensate us for not dealing the tournaments.

WTF????? Who is on drugs here? I think the new dealers should have to deal the Black Chip games so the players that never tip and always bitch in those games will get what they deserve…dealers that have no clue…and us regular experienced dealers should get to deal the tournaments because at least we make money and there is no screaming confusion in the tournaments.

Oh…did I get sidetracked? Nope! That’s part of the ‘bitchiness’. Shit! I spent the last three nights in Black Chip Hell. Made a lot less than I would have if there was no tournament going on…listened to the Black Chip Blues (the tune is done in whine mode with no beat)…dreaded the thought there was another week of this crap going on…wondering how the luck of the draw would send me back through these ugly faces and the line-up from hell.

We are understaffed. Our chip runners are running food. Leaving us short of people to bring Player’s Chips and Fills. Our Floor People are totally stretched to the max to try and keep up with lists, seat changes, new games, player’s chips, and decisions. We are short of dealers…help Mrs. Wizard!!! Mr. Wizard has gone South.

Then to top it off, while on a break with my friend, Sylvia, seated in Mangia (the employee’s dining room), we were joined by two of our Vietnamese dealers. They sat right down and took off in Vietnamese. I almost exploded. “English only please.”

They said, “OK!”

But I find that to be horribly rude. If I join them, I don’t care what they speak. If they join me…get with it. English only, Kids.

I made it through the $400-800 Mixed. The $200-400 Deuce to 7 Triple Draw. An $80-160 game that sucked. Three $10-20 NLH games in which the only bright spot was Wayne…he was playing over.

A $30-60 H game in which Danny was having a total brain cell explosion – he was in the 9s – and the dealer I was following was one of the new ones and Danny should have been the Button but the dealer moved the Button to the 2s (the 1s was open) and had dealt the hand. No one noticed it until after the hand had been dealt and was almost over. OK! Where the hell were these players while this was going on? Not because I’m making excuses for the dealer but what are the players thinking to let this happen???? They know a lot of new dealers are in our midst.

Danny was fuming and snorting…making comments to the dealer as he left the box. I sat down to a mess. I tried to slow Danny down by reaching over and touching his hand. He went ape shit! “Don’t touch me!”

Ok. Enough of that. He wanted to go crazy and lose control of his thought so it’s best he do it alone. He was up and down during my down.

Jason J. was in the 4s and he always makes me comfortable during a down. He appreciates me as a dealer and I appreciate him from that side of the table. I visited with Jason off and on about Andy and the Big Game. Would it happen? Were the restrictions from Andy’s side too much? Did I have any info on the guy that played Gus H. heads up no limit last week for a $50,000 buy-in? The rest of the table was pretty relaxed and calm…intermittent with Danny jumping in and out.

Hey…if Danny’s pissed at the previous dealer, there ain’t nothing I can do about it. Get used to it folks. There are new dealers everywhere.

When I hit the next game, $15-30 H, one of my least favorite players was in the 9s. Kevin S. He’s something else…and it ain’t good. But this is the part of the night that actually kicked off my being able to laugh at the Poker Pit, the Black Chip Blues, and the whole damn thing.

I yelled, “Fill on Table 23.”

From the game behind me, came Jason’s voice, “Get it yourself, Bitch!”

I started laughing. One of the players in my game asked, “Is that your husband?”

Vince was in the 3s in my game and he said, “If he keeps talking like that, he will be!”

Shit! I still love poker.

I got the magic E/O at 1:30 a.m. The best part of the night was that Sylvia and I walked to the parking lot together. Even though her back has been bothering her and she’s in pain…we were laughing our butts off over the nights events and we kept coming up with, “And did you think?” or “…what the hell was going on there?” and we were busting out laughing…at ourselves…at the players…at the idiocy of life and poker rolled into one.

As soon as I hit the door of my sweet little home, I poured a glass…