The Boy and I headed back to lovely Joliet, Illinois this past weekend to both 1) have dinner with my parents and 2) go gambling.

We do not gamble, and we do not come from gambling people, but he had a piece to write on gambling for work, specifically on Harrah's, so it was to J-town we went. I thought it would be fun - kitschy even. An evening back at the homestead, visiting a place I'd never been, and maybe even winning some money.

But you know what we found?

Hope went there to die, but got suckered into playing the slots, found itself a really nasty coke habit then married a feathered-hair cocktail waitress, crawled into the parking lot and proceeded to pass out. Death isn't an option at Harrah's. A never ending, miserable existence, however, is.

Honest to God, if the lesson I learned at nine from JP wasn't enough to curb me from wanting to gamble - wherein I had a great running streak going, betting him $1 each game played by the 1985-86 Bears until they lost a game and I felt what it was like to lose, which sucked and I hated it so much - then this most surely did.

We felt dirty when we walked out of there. Seriously.

Posted by Erin at 01:09 PM | filed under: Odds and ends