A discussion broke out this weekend about a claim I made about seven years ago, and I’m sticking to the claim despite nobody believing me. I found a nine-banded armadillo rummaging through my trash and I beat it to death with a shovel. You might be thinking two different things here, so I’ll answer both questions. Yes, while not native to the land, armadillos do in fact live in New Jersey. Two, I had to kill him because if I let him run away, he would’ve eventually brought his friends with him and they would’ve kept eating my trash. Ok, I’m glad I got that off my chest.

When it comes to cigs, I’ve got one rule. I only smoke them indoors. Outside? No way bro. I think it’s the novelty of the situation that makes it intriguing to me. Casinos, bars in the south, and frat house basements. That’s it. This weekend was Gabe’s bachelor party in Brigantine, only a short five-minute drive from the ultimate smoker’s paradise– Atlantic City. I won’t go through the whole bachelor weekend, but we’ll certainly start with the casino. Ladies and Gentlemen, light your spliffs.

The 22 of us pulled into the Hard Rock Casino FEELING OURSELVES after pregaming for hours playing the Horsecock drinking game. For those of you that don’t know it– check it out, it’s electric. I had one plan. Make generational wealth from blackjack while chain smoking cigs like the cowboy I am. Game on. I took out money from the ATM, found a couple open seats at a $25 minimum bet table, and as we say in show business… SHOWTIME.

Here were the cast of characters at the table:

1. The Rocket – An ambitious indoor smoking, smooth talking, generational-wealth making machine looking to make his mark on America’s Playground.
2. Drew ‘The Lion’ Mackin – A close personal friend of the Rocket who would very soon defy basic blackjack math and fuck over the entire table with his poor play.
3. Sloth from “The Goonies” – That’s what this dude looked like. He was hideous, he was bad, and he smoked cigs the entire time. I couldn’t keep up. His friends ditched him, but he never wavered in his goal to lose money. Degenerates will degenerate.
4. Guido – Guy only played four hands and lost several thousand dollars. South Jersey/Philly/Fake Italian accent type. The type that says “Aye sweethaat” instead of “sweetheart,” you know the one.
5. Jeremy – A fellow indoor-only smoker and bachelor party attendee also attempting to leave with more money than he walked in with.

I was down $75 dollars in the course of two minutes. HOWEVER, the first cig had been lit and I was already going cig for cig with The Sloth. The Guido was sitting to my right and putting hundreds of dollars on each hand and he wouldn’t shut the fuck up either. Betting $25 dollars on a hand and blowing smoke in the guys face who’s betting $500 on a hand is a huge alpha move, by the way. And now comes one of the greatest moments in blackjack history. The Guido puts his entire stack on the table. If I had to guess I’d say a few thousand dollars. The dealer draws a 6 and The Lion draws a 12. Everyone knows… you don’t hit a 12 against a 6.

“Hit me.”
“No don’t hit him. Drew, don’t hit.”
“Hit me.”

You know what happens next. Drew draws a 9, gets 21, the dealer flips a 10, then a 4. That’s 20. Everyone busts except Drew, who played it wrong, and The Guido was out thousands of dollars while Drew sat there with a big smile. Remarkable. I got up to get a Bud Light (ally) from the bar just in time to see Gavin Milk Man Reeves aimlessly pressing buttons on a slot machine saying “how is that not a winner?” I got another cig, walked back to the table, and sat in between our newest additions to the table. I threw my final $50 down and the dealer drew herself a blackjack. You Cunt. But I didn’t leave. I just sat there smoking with $0 dollars and chatting it up with the girl next to me. “What do you like about cigs?” “Well I’m indoors, obviously.” Then I asked her where she was from and she said I wouldn’t last a day in her hometown. Literally one day. That was her response. Newsflash sweethaat, you wouldn’t last one day in my shoes either with those stupid flamingo tattoos, bitch! Finally, we were ready to leave the casino after Mendez won $400 bucks on a slot machine (only after he already lost $300 on the same machine). A party bus waiting outside offered four of us a ride for $65 dollars, but then said it was only $10 a head when the rest of the group got there. I asked him how $10 a head for four people came out to $65 dollars and he actually got in the back of the party bus, pointed to me, and said “hey, that guy is really cheap.” How emasculating.

I feel like I could go on and on about this entire weekend. For starters, there were 25 people there including the father of the bride, who put on a legendary performance all weekend. I won’t get into any other details about the trip aside from the car ride down:

The original trip down was supposed to be just me and Gavin
“The MilkMan” Reeves, but I made the soul-crushing error of agreeing to give Max a ride down as well. I didn’t realize this at the time of the agreement, but Max is the type of person you can’t do favors for, because if you do one, he expects you to do a million. From the get-go, we had to work around Max’s work schedule. But it wasn’t the schedule that pissed us off, it was the fact that Max put MilkMan and I in a group chat weeks prior to the trip and kept telling us to ask Gabe specific questions about the trip. Wifi, address, check-in time. It was almost as if… he couldn’t just ask these questions himself? So what do we do to a vulture? We attempt to make the ride as painful as possible.

According to Max, which I now think was a stretch of the truth, he needed to
be in AC by 3:30 to make “high speed downloads” on his computer or
leave the city at 5pm after the downloads completed. The Milk and I planned on
leaving from my apartment at 1 and getting to Brigantine by 3:15 for the
downloads. Well, Max refused to meet us at my apartment and we got stuck behind a box truck for 25 minutes trying to get to Greenwhich Village. Max had the biggest resting bitch face when we pulled up 30 minutes late and promptly said “I’ve been waiting on my porch for 30 minutes asshole, what the fuck was that?”
A “hey how are ya?” would’ve sufficed!  About two minutes into the trip I started playing the song “Mr. Bojangles” which I consider to be an all time classic.  

“What the fuck is this song?  Turn this shit off,”  Max said.  I gave Gavin a smile and knew what needed to happen.  I played Mr. Bojangles once every 20 minutes and I don’t think I’ve ever succeeded in getting someone so angry.  It was climaxing without physical touch.  SEXUAL NEPALM.  Just to put the cherry on top, I started going 103mph and weaving in between cars to make Max a little more angry.  Mission.Accomplished. 

Upcoming

I have to go to Dr. Litz tonight for my Invisalign appointment. Remember when I started writing this blog in February and I only had a few more weeks of Invisalign left? It’s STILL on. It’s almost a bit at this point, but it’s not. I’m currently on week 23 out of 10. TEN! And if I was a betting man, which I certainly am, I would bet that the buttons don’t come off tonight. My bottom teeth just won’t stay. I take off the bottom retainer and it’s perfectly straight and within 20 minutes… “they move on me like a bitch,”– Don Trump.

Nantucket is this weekend and I’m sure getting supercharged with Brian and Ellick there will produce some great memories– and content. Readers– rejoice.

EARLY WINNERS

Gopher and Iceman… The Money Bag Boys – I made a poll in the group chat the other day and it turned into a contest with the winners getting a hand written postcard in the mail from me. These guys won at my expense. I haven’t mailed them yet, but I will

RAND – The father of the bride. That’s all I’ll say.

Slade – Laughed the entire time on Saturday morning while I ripped ass for a straight hour

EARLY LOSERS

Dare I say……. obtainers of CFAs?