A Lucky Day

Our friend Mark went to California for a week but stopped back in Vegas for a couple days before returning to Detroit.  We decided we would all “pull a Mark” again at the Bellagio buffet.  It was so good the first time that we had to have another go at it.  We were just a little slow getting out the door.  We arrived to meet Mark at the queue for the buffet at about 3:10.  The line looked a bit long to us, but Mark who is the expert after all at “pulling a Mark” said he thought we would just make it before the price would go up at 3:30.  But then several people started passing through the preferred lane who took priority over those of us in the “pulling-a-Mark” lane.  It went right down to the wire, we were at the final gate before the payment registers with 3 minutes to spare.  The registers cleared but the hostess wouldn’t open the gate for us to pay because there were too many people in the line of people waiting to be seated.  The clock strikes 3:29.  There is no forgiveness on the time.  You either pay before 3:30 or you are assessed the higher dinner price.  We are panicking at this point.  I am virtually jumping up and down and calling out to the hostess.  She unhooks the rope.  We race to one register; Mark races to the other.  Out come the credit cards.  Our voucher gets printed.  And the time on the vouchers is 3:29 – we pulled a Mark with only a few seconds to spare – a $33 save among the three of us.  And even though it isn’t the gourmet dinner with the caviar on a Monday, it was a fabulous meal just the same.

I had the sniffles and was starting to feel like I was going a bit downhill, so we jumped a bus back to the downtown.  Our casino has been running a Monday Night Football promotion wherein they give out various items of swag and one grand prize each week.  It seems all the casinos run some kind of MNF promotion to try to get you into and to stay at their casino during the game.  It was halftime when we got back so we had missed all the first half drawings.  We went to the kiosk and printed out our vouchers.  We crunched them up and straightened them back out to increase our chances of being drawn.  We dropped them into the drum.   During the second half they gave away some t-shirts and a couple bottles of wine, but nothing for us.  The end of the game comes. (And it was an exciting game as the Rams had several chances to upset the Seahawks in the last seconds but fell short.)  They announce the grand prize drawing is about to commence.  Some casino bigwig comes in to spin the drum and draw the winning ticket.  He hands it to the announcer.  He reads the first name “Leeanne”.  I immediately think there isn’t another Leeanne in this crowd.  Sure enough, he calls the last name and it is me.  I won the grand prize – a 32” Flat Screen TV.

We already changed out the TVs in our motor home to flat screens.  We really have no use for this one, so up on to Craigslist it has gone.  Gary never wins a thing in drawings but I have to say I have pretty uncanny luck when it comes to these things.  But another raffle win was a real thrill!  We were big winners on the day and we didn’t gamble a nickel.