Day 87
Following my inadvertent faux pas on Valentines Day, I was made to pay for it today.
Still bunged up with flu, I had to embark on a gift shopping expedition with the wife. As if this wasn’t bad enough, Surrogate Daughter and Small Child insisted on tagging along. I suppose I should be thankful the cat didn’t jump in the car.
Before I even turned the ignition key I knew this was going to be either bad, very bad or fucking catastrophic.
Small Child was eventually strapped into her safety seat after wriggling around like a maggot in an effort to remain out of it and we set off. Although it tried to test my patience by continually screaming, I has anticipated this development and launched an immediate counter-strike with some precision Lenny Kravitz at full-blast. Realizing that lungs were no match for Lenny’s Stratocaster, it stopped yelling and turned its attention to dribbling all over the back seat instead.
Eventually we parked the car and began our trek around the shops.
Mrs. Snowman had been greedily thumbing through jewellery catalogues over the previous 24 hours and had already picked out 3 or 4 prospective gifts. I must admit this was a very smart and particularly sly move on her behalf. By choosing something with a price tag similar to the gross national product of Venezuela, she could negotiate down to about twenty times my intended expenditure.
By the time I’d slumped through the doors of the fifth jewellery store I was being worn down to submission. A keen saleswoman swooped on us and within seconds an astonishing amount of gold was glistening on a couple of display mats.
During their excited conversation, Mrs. Snowman explained that she wanted a heart shaped pendant accented with a few diamonds.
I sweetly asked the shop assistant if they had one that was spleen shaped.
Some quick footwork ensured I avoided her kick by swerving one way but walked straight into a well-timed left hook when I swayed back the other.
Eventually she settled on a pair of earrings that earned the saleswoman enough commission to buy a small holiday home on the Costa del Sol. At this point I handed her the car keys and told her I was feeling a little light headed and would make my own way home by taxi.
It wasn’t a lie, I was indeed felling unwell and needed to lie down. You won’t be shocked to hear it had nothing to do with my cold but rather because of the vicious and brutal assault on my bank account. That coupled with Surrogate Daughters request to stroll round a few baby shops finished it for me completely.
All-in all a pretty bad morning.
Good news, however, can be relayed for the second successive day regarding my exploits on the poker tables.
I thought I’d chance my arm at the 2c/5c tables for an hour. Once more I sat back and watched the other players for a while, hoping to discover a few chinks in their armour before committing any significant amount of chips. I noticed one particular player was raising every time from the button, presumably in an attempt to steal the blinds. I bided my time, waited until I got pocket 9’s, re-raised twice the pot and wiped out half of his stack when I hit trips on the turn. Although I only invested $10 (with the intention of making 10%), my re-raised trips made $3.16 and I cashed out. Tomorrow I shall play for a little longer and try to take my bank over $30 for the first time by hitting the 5c/10c tables.
On my return, I figured the best thing to do was retire to bed with the laptop and try to sweat it out. Not only did this mean I could write my diary entry without any distractions but I didn’t have to watch Small Child regurgitate the contents of its stomach across the living room
Mrs. Snowman very thoughtfully purchased some cough medicine and flu tablets to finally drive out my cold. For some reason she also removed them from their box and left them on the bedside cabinet (her side of the bed) for me to take every couple of hours.
After a few hours it was becoming clear they weren’t having any impact whatsoever and it was only on closer scrutiny of the medication that I discovered the reason.
I’d spent the afternoon and early evening diligently swallowing her birth control pills.
Starting bank: $0
Current bank: $26.51
Still bunged up with flu, I had to embark on a gift shopping expedition with the wife. As if this wasn’t bad enough, Surrogate Daughter and Small Child insisted on tagging along. I suppose I should be thankful the cat didn’t jump in the car.
Before I even turned the ignition key I knew this was going to be either bad, very bad or fucking catastrophic.
Small Child was eventually strapped into her safety seat after wriggling around like a maggot in an effort to remain out of it and we set off. Although it tried to test my patience by continually screaming, I has anticipated this development and launched an immediate counter-strike with some precision Lenny Kravitz at full-blast. Realizing that lungs were no match for Lenny’s Stratocaster, it stopped yelling and turned its attention to dribbling all over the back seat instead.
Eventually we parked the car and began our trek around the shops.
Mrs. Snowman had been greedily thumbing through jewellery catalogues over the previous 24 hours and had already picked out 3 or 4 prospective gifts. I must admit this was a very smart and particularly sly move on her behalf. By choosing something with a price tag similar to the gross national product of Venezuela, she could negotiate down to about twenty times my intended expenditure.
By the time I’d slumped through the doors of the fifth jewellery store I was being worn down to submission. A keen saleswoman swooped on us and within seconds an astonishing amount of gold was glistening on a couple of display mats.
During their excited conversation, Mrs. Snowman explained that she wanted a heart shaped pendant accented with a few diamonds.
I sweetly asked the shop assistant if they had one that was spleen shaped.
Some quick footwork ensured I avoided her kick by swerving one way but walked straight into a well-timed left hook when I swayed back the other.
Eventually she settled on a pair of earrings that earned the saleswoman enough commission to buy a small holiday home on the Costa del Sol. At this point I handed her the car keys and told her I was feeling a little light headed and would make my own way home by taxi.
It wasn’t a lie, I was indeed felling unwell and needed to lie down. You won’t be shocked to hear it had nothing to do with my cold but rather because of the vicious and brutal assault on my bank account. That coupled with Surrogate Daughters request to stroll round a few baby shops finished it for me completely.
All-in all a pretty bad morning.
Good news, however, can be relayed for the second successive day regarding my exploits on the poker tables.
I thought I’d chance my arm at the 2c/5c tables for an hour. Once more I sat back and watched the other players for a while, hoping to discover a few chinks in their armour before committing any significant amount of chips. I noticed one particular player was raising every time from the button, presumably in an attempt to steal the blinds. I bided my time, waited until I got pocket 9’s, re-raised twice the pot and wiped out half of his stack when I hit trips on the turn. Although I only invested $10 (with the intention of making 10%), my re-raised trips made $3.16 and I cashed out. Tomorrow I shall play for a little longer and try to take my bank over $30 for the first time by hitting the 5c/10c tables.
On my return, I figured the best thing to do was retire to bed with the laptop and try to sweat it out. Not only did this mean I could write my diary entry without any distractions but I didn’t have to watch Small Child regurgitate the contents of its stomach across the living room
Mrs. Snowman very thoughtfully purchased some cough medicine and flu tablets to finally drive out my cold. For some reason she also removed them from their box and left them on the bedside cabinet (her side of the bed) for me to take every couple of hours.
After a few hours it was becoming clear they weren’t having any impact whatsoever and it was only on closer scrutiny of the medication that I discovered the reason.
I’d spent the afternoon and early evening diligently swallowing her birth control pills.
Starting bank: $0
Current bank: $26.51