...blog your own adventure?

"Double down!" Although the appeal of Las Vegas had gotten him in the beginning, Sean realized that after only 9 months of dealing blackjack at the Pink Flamingo on the strip, the glamour in the Wayne Newton commercials and the hour long segments on the Travel Channel was more or less limited to the commercials and the segments. A year ago, he could have just as easily been the twenty-one year old with baggy cargo shorts and sunglasses tucked into an "I rock Catholic Girls" t-shirt that he saw in front of him. Minus the shirt, of course. His shirt would have read "I feel most comfortable in stable relationships." All the more reason to move to Vegas, right? Why not take a year off before going to grad school? Nine months ago he thought his t-shirt might one day read "I rocked 9 strippers in a bath tub full of a combination of jello and casino chips I earned in my off time." Instead, he wished his t-shirt read "Hey, ass, don't double down on K-2 when I have a 9 showing." Actually, with all this thinking, he really wished he had opened a customizable t-shirt shop instead of indulging his inner monologue while he was supposed to be dealing.

Sean dealt a 9 to the catholic girl t-shirt giving him 21. Sean, the dealer, busted. "That extra 20 he just made is going to cost him $100 before tomorrow in stupid blackjack moves," he thought. "Wow, I can tell a player with balls," he said, tapping the $10 chip on the felt that he knew the young player would tip him for making him look cool in front of Boobs Mcgee sitting to the player's left. Of course, her name wasn't really Boobs Mcgee. That would be a bad precedent for your author to set most likely resulting in Sean being called "Alter McEgo." Sean knew that Boobs wasn't interested the guy up $20. He knew this because she had been sitting at his table all week with a respectable yet short skirt, flip-flops, and a different shirt every day that cried "Your leering is giving me the self-esteem needed to go talk to a guy slightly hotter than you." Sean felt like he might be that hotter guy. (Side note: You're thinking, "is he really going to just call her Boobs?" And, until Sean finds out her name...yes, yes I am)

Sadly, since he liked the way she pretended not to look at him, and fortunately, since it had been a couple of months since he thought dealing was the coolest job ever, it was break time. Having seen her 4 days straight, he knew that Boobs would most likely get up as soon as it was clear he was leaving the table. This time, she did not. Instead, she dropped a piece of paper in Sean's path. "Hey, can you just throw that out for me," she said, giving Sean a look that indicated that this was a time, more than ever, for Sean to read between the lines. Sean, busy thinking about being on break and wondering how he could manage asking her out, gave her a look back that indicated, more than anything else, that he was a boy and, therefore, oblivous to subtleties. He said "Sure!" and threw out her note, hoping that consciensciousness and helpfulness was a turn-on for her. Slightly amazed, Boobs ran after Sean, put her hand on his upper back and whispered, "actually, I was hoping you'd meet me later tonight. 10 o'clock in front of Bally's?" Sean knew that despite watching Ocean's 11 on a constant loop in preparation for living in Vegas, he was very much incapable of coming up with a verbal response that had the right combination of "sure, whatever" and "if you want, I'll quit my job right now and do you on the roulette wheel." Instead, he gave an eyebrow gesture and a nod that represented about all the casualness he could muster. (Which essentially had the same effect as Monica from Friends telling Richard's answering machine: "I'm breezy.")

At 3:30, Sean was back from break. His daydreaming about Boobs (which, I should point out, is much different than his daydreaming about boobs. The capital "B" makes all the difference in this case), let 3 $10 tips from the same player go by without a thank you. Before he dealt out the next hand, he made sure to offer a thanks in a tone that acknowledged the previous two tips as well as the most recent one. After another two tips came in, he noticed that he had been receiving tips from the same player, win or lose. "Been dealing long?," the generous player asked.
"Yeah, since 12."
"No, I mean in general."
"Oh, about a year." This was always Sean's answer. There was something belittling about being a young, inexperienced blackjack dealer that prevented Sean from answering "9 months next Tuesday."
"Perfect," said the man, just loud enough to hear but just soft enough to pretend he didn't mean to say it out loud. "Listen, I hear that Binion's casino downtown has some great drink specials around 9:30. I bet a kid on your budget could use some cheap drinks. Just thought I'd mention it. "

Although Ocean's 11 had failed him when it came to talking to girls, he had watched it enough to recognize that this gentlemen wanted to meet with him about something. This thought was followed immediately by the self-loathing that you feel when you realize that you were oblivious to a beautiful girl trying to pass you a note but were right on top of things when a middle aged man with horse-shoe pattern baldness, white pants with a blue short-sleeved button down shirt tucked into them, a thin gold chain, and the physique of a slender man that had eaten too much fast food, was trying to arrange a meeting with you.

"I'll keep it in mind," Sean said, trying to decide how much money it was worth to do something possibly illegal and how quickly he could get over to Bally's if this guy just wanted to know how to get into dealing or, alternately, Sean's pants.
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Ok, time to choose. Meet the girl at 10 or meet the guy at 9:30 with a slim possibility of making it back in time to see the girl? Blog your own adventure! Post a reply with your choice and we will all find out next week, based on the majority, what Sean ends up doing!

...have a great idea?

Well, I'm not sure if I have or not but hopefully you will all let me know. I know I haven't posted in over a month and I appreciate those that have voiced dissatisfaction with this. I have stumbled across an idea that I think has the potential to develop a large readership and, eventually, will be sold to google for approximately $150,000. This idea, simply, is "Blog Your Own Adventure" Already I see a problem in the there are too many words starting with vowels and that makes it hard to make into an acronym. Basically, we all remember choose your own adventure novels from when we were kids. This will be an internet version where, after reading a portion of a story and given a choice, you will all decide which way the story goes next by majority vote. Of course, we are all relying on my ability to tell a story. If nothing else, this will get me blogging more and hopefully the usual "did you ever" posts will be interspersed in my BYOA's. Most importantly, I will rely on you all to vote (and even debate) on where the story goes....well, here goes nothing... (as a side note, I plan on writing spur of the moment, stream of consciousness as I always do. This is not planned out plot. ...for what it's worth).