Day 90
As if I haven’t forked out enough money over the past couple of weeks, there’s another event tomorrow that is virtually certain to wipe out the remainder of my bank account in a single swoop.
Surrogate Daughter’s birthday.
Last week I invited her to write a list of potential presents that, in retrospect, was not one of my finest ideas. A very hopeful looking individual presented it to me this morning while I was eating my corn flakes and recovering from the hangover caused by yesterday’s cricket and beer experiment..
It was two pages long.
The briefest of scans ensured I lost my appetite for the rest of the day.
I would have been slightly perturbed if the most expensive item was a bottle of perfume or set of DVD’s.
The cheapest was a laptop computer.
And she was very specific in her requests. Not only was there an exact price accompanying each item, she’d also managed to find the model and serial numbers. What’s more, a large percentage was completely superfluous things for Small Child.
When Mrs. Snowman arrived home from work (having taken a de-tour via the grocery store) I took her somewhere quiet and showed her the outrageous paperwork in the hope she would be shocked into beating her offspring with a frozen haddock.
Rather than showing any indication of being annoyed, she was absolutely delighted and showed her pleasure by saying brightly, “Great, that’s going to save us a lot of time! What do you think we should get her?”
As much as I wanted to offer my suggestion that a lobotomy would be useful, I bit my lip and kept quiet.
Mrs. Snowman then informed me that she’d managed to get tomorrow off work and we would be spending the day shopping for the present…with mother-in-law, Daughter and Small Child.
Have you ever seen a boxing match when one fighter gets hit so hard that his legs turn to jelly and he wobbles around for a couple of seconds before they collapse underneath him? I think you’re getting the picture.
To my good fortune there was a chair directly behind me that broke my fall but it still took a while for my hands to stop shaking.
Mrs. Snowman asked me why my bottom lip was quivering.
I wasn’t really in the mood to play any poker but needed something to take my mind of the horrors that face me tomorrow so hit the tables for a couple of hours.
As my funds are currently moving in the wrong direction I figured I’d be better off playing the 1c/2c games rather than donking them all away in one hit on the higher games.
Things started well and within an hour I was $2 up after calling a re-raise with two pair when my opponent was clearly trying to bluff me off the pot, however, try as I might I couldn’t get the thought of tomorrow’s trip out of my head and it began to affect my judgment. I had a stab at bluffing an Ace high flop and found myself pot committed against a shorter stack who quickly relived me of $3.50 with pocket Kings.
It wasn’t long before my $5 investment was virtually gone and if it wasn’t for the fortunate appearance of pocket Aces on my intended last hand it would have disappeared completely. I eventually left the table after losing £4.03 ensuring I had enough for a couple of small tournaments later in the day when Mrs. Snowman would be trying to break the World decibel record for snoring.
When the females had retired to bed, I planted myself on the sofa with the laptop and tried to relax with a movie while writing this entry. I should have known better than trying to do several things at once as while I was engrossed in watching Clint Eastwood shoot Lee Van Cleef I made the mistake of not putting the ashtray in a safe position.
I lit a cigarette and managed to set fire to my trousers.
Starting bank: $0
Current bank: $5.81
Surrogate Daughter’s birthday.
Last week I invited her to write a list of potential presents that, in retrospect, was not one of my finest ideas. A very hopeful looking individual presented it to me this morning while I was eating my corn flakes and recovering from the hangover caused by yesterday’s cricket and beer experiment..
It was two pages long.
The briefest of scans ensured I lost my appetite for the rest of the day.
I would have been slightly perturbed if the most expensive item was a bottle of perfume or set of DVD’s.
The cheapest was a laptop computer.
And she was very specific in her requests. Not only was there an exact price accompanying each item, she’d also managed to find the model and serial numbers. What’s more, a large percentage was completely superfluous things for Small Child.
When Mrs. Snowman arrived home from work (having taken a de-tour via the grocery store) I took her somewhere quiet and showed her the outrageous paperwork in the hope she would be shocked into beating her offspring with a frozen haddock.
Rather than showing any indication of being annoyed, she was absolutely delighted and showed her pleasure by saying brightly, “Great, that’s going to save us a lot of time! What do you think we should get her?”
As much as I wanted to offer my suggestion that a lobotomy would be useful, I bit my lip and kept quiet.
Mrs. Snowman then informed me that she’d managed to get tomorrow off work and we would be spending the day shopping for the present…with mother-in-law, Daughter and Small Child.
Have you ever seen a boxing match when one fighter gets hit so hard that his legs turn to jelly and he wobbles around for a couple of seconds before they collapse underneath him? I think you’re getting the picture.
To my good fortune there was a chair directly behind me that broke my fall but it still took a while for my hands to stop shaking.
Mrs. Snowman asked me why my bottom lip was quivering.
I wasn’t really in the mood to play any poker but needed something to take my mind of the horrors that face me tomorrow so hit the tables for a couple of hours.
As my funds are currently moving in the wrong direction I figured I’d be better off playing the 1c/2c games rather than donking them all away in one hit on the higher games.
Things started well and within an hour I was $2 up after calling a re-raise with two pair when my opponent was clearly trying to bluff me off the pot, however, try as I might I couldn’t get the thought of tomorrow’s trip out of my head and it began to affect my judgment. I had a stab at bluffing an Ace high flop and found myself pot committed against a shorter stack who quickly relived me of $3.50 with pocket Kings.
It wasn’t long before my $5 investment was virtually gone and if it wasn’t for the fortunate appearance of pocket Aces on my intended last hand it would have disappeared completely. I eventually left the table after losing £4.03 ensuring I had enough for a couple of small tournaments later in the day when Mrs. Snowman would be trying to break the World decibel record for snoring.
When the females had retired to bed, I planted myself on the sofa with the laptop and tried to relax with a movie while writing this entry. I should have known better than trying to do several things at once as while I was engrossed in watching Clint Eastwood shoot Lee Van Cleef I made the mistake of not putting the ashtray in a safe position.
I lit a cigarette and managed to set fire to my trousers.
Starting bank: $0
Current bank: $5.81