Some time ago my folks and I decided to celebrate my last birthday by taking a trip to the casinos. We had a coupon for an all you can eat buffet, so I was immediately sold on the idea.

I had never been to a casino before, being the kind of guy who didn’t see the logic in having my money so quickly liberated by a gang of mob-like casino runners, but this time my curiosity won out. The place we were going to was a huge complex consisting of a mall, an indoor stadium, a luxury hotel, and of course, the casino itself. When we walked in I was visually assaulted by bright lights everywhere, in all different shades of shiny colors that thrilled me.

“Wow, the colors, the colors! I gotta take a pic of this!” *Click*

Next thing I knew I was surrounded by three security guards.

“uh….”

“Excuse me sir, you’re not allowed to take pictures here.”

I managed to stutter out an apology, thinking for sure I was now going to get my head bounced off the cement, but they were pretty nice about it, checking my camera to make sure I wasn’t scoping the territory, then finally letting me go with just a warning. I quickly put my camera away and briskly walked to a different section (just in case they were having second thoughts), where I tried my hand at a few slot machines. 5 minutes in I was beginning to realize how much I really hated gambling. I had two coupons worth 20 dollars that I could use to gamble and promptly lost it all in under 45 seconds. After that I was pretty much tapped out, refusing to spend another dime on this accursed place.

It occurred to me though that when you’re not willing to spend money at a casino, there isn’t much else you can do, except maybe stare at the pretty lights some more. I finally gave up and hit the restaurant, where the food was simply excellent, much to my relief. I sampled foods with weird sounding names and polished it all off with a HUGE waffle cone of creamy chocolate ice cream. Yeah yeah, I may be getting up there in years, but I still refuse to grow up.

Despite the vast size of the casino complex, once the eating was done, there really wasn’t much else to do, so not surprisingly I quickly got bored out of my mind. I decided to call it a day and went back to the terminal to wait for my bus to arrive, where I ran into a thick wall of cigarette smoke coming from chain smokers who were also waiting for their buses. I swear, I’ve never seen so many cigars and cigarettes in my life. EVERYBODY was smoking up a storm. I guess for them it was a way of taking their minds off the thousands of dollars they just blew by saying “hit me” one time too many in Blackjack.

Honestly, these gamblers creeped me out. The zombie looks on their faces as they continued to pour coins into slot machines, their horrific reaction to seeing the wheel go just a few numbers past the one they bet on, the wringing of hands for being dealt awful cards in Texas Hold ‘Em, and so on. Maybe I’m weird, but I don’t consider this my idea of fun.

The bus finally came, and I leapt up the stairs with a nod to the driver and a short request:

“Get us the hell outta here.”

The complex soon shrank into the background, almost sinking into the earth as I glanced back one last time and thought to myself: “Never again.”