Pegleg Starfish

As you may already know, my job involves calling a rousing game of Bingo every Wednesday afternoon.  Actually 10 games of Bingo.  Here’s another post about Bingo that you may have missed:

  http://peglegstarfish.com/2008/03/07/b-11/

This Wednesday’s Bingo game brought me another funny story that I have to share, because I know you all want to know every little detail about my life. You probably want to be me. It’s OK…everyone does.   :)

Each Bingo session has about 30+ residents who participate. It’s the same group of residents who come to every Bingo session. They sit in the same exact spot and play the same cards every time. It’s all a very scheduled and exact thing. Everything about these folks is super scheduled. They get up at the same time every day (did you know old people don’t sleep in on weekends!), they eat breakfast at the same time everyday, watch the same things on TV, etc. I feel like this whole life schedule is rubbing off on me and my life, but we’ll chat about that later.

Bingo goes like this: the residents come into the location (a dining room) and grab the Bingo cards that they want to play with for that session. Some residents play with one card while some play up to six at a time. And remember…each card costs 50 cents. After everyone is seated, I go around the room and collect their money in a big plastic cup. They usually have the exact change sitting out on the table for me. I will take a glance and make sure they are paying for all of their cards. They have their cards are spread out on the table, duh, so this makes it a pretty quick process. Then I split up the money into ten winning pots. Everyone knows the drill.  

This particular lady, we’ll call her Betty to protect her identity, always plays Bingo with me on Wednesdays.  She’s a pretty active lady who likes to go on trips with us and participate in other activities that we offer. She’s not one of my favorite ladies. That’s an understatement. She’s a nasty, old bitty. And don’t worry, they call each other old bitties, so that gives me permission to say it. She is super nice to you to your face, but then talks about you behind your back. And when old people talk about you behind your back, they are usually talking loud enough for you to hear. Basically, I know she doesn’t really like me. But she doesn’t really like anyone for that matter. Betty just isn’t a nice lady.

But, Betty loves her Bingo games. She usually plays 4 or 5 Bingo cards at a time. This time she decided to play 4. When I went around to collect money I saw that she had 4 cards neatly laid out on the table and had her $2 ready and waiting. But something caught my eye. One of the Bingo cards looked a little thick, almost like there were two stacked right on top of another. I took a mental note of this as I collected her $2, which was just enough to cover the 4 cards. I knew what Betty was trying to pull. And old people can’t pull off tricks like this very well. I collected everyone elses money and sat down to start the calling. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Betty slip out her hidden Bingo card and begin playing on 5 cards! Not the 4 she had paid for earlier. That little trickster! I seriously could barely keep a straight face. It was so funny to me that this lady was trying to pull this crap. And me being the beotch that I can be, had to bite my tongue not to totally call her out and ask her if she’d like to pay for that extra card.

I didn’t. I didn’t humiliate Betty over a 50 Cent Bingo card. I didn’t point out that I knew what she was doing. I didn’t get on the loud speaker and announce that Betty was a thief. I didn’t point out that she was a totally disgraceful old bitty.

As I sat there calling Bingo, I thought about what I was going to do and say if she did in fact win one of the games. Instead of giving her the $5 pot for a Bingo win, I would have given her $4.50 and told her I was keeping the extra 50 Cents for the card that she ‘forgot’ to pay for.  And I would say ‘forgot’ with a snotty attitude.  I’m good at snotty attitudes.  That would have made her realize that I had seen what she was trying to pull without humiliating her in front of her peers.  That was the perfect plan that would have allowed me to really stick it to her.  Alas…she didn’t win a single game.  I was unable to put my plan into action.

Hopefully, she pulls this next Wednesday and I can call her out on her stealing ways. If I was a normal person, this occurrence probably wouldn’t bother me one bit. I could shrug it off and forget about it and blame it on her being old. But no, I have to lose sleep thinking about it and what I coulda-shoulda done to Betty. And don’t think that I’m a horrible person for wanting to embarrass Betty over 50 Cents. She could totally afford it-I’ve seen her apartment and all her worldly treasures. Even the residents who I think of as ‘poor’ pay for their Bingo cards. Betty sucks!

Betty has no idea who she’s dealing with! I will bring the PAIN if she tries to pull this crap again.

J

Personal Note: T and I are going to the Houston Rodeo tonight! Bucking bulls followed by a Toby Keith concert!! I’m excited, but I’d be more excited if we didn’t have such crappy seats.

Either way, I’m coming home with a Toby t-shirt and some pictures of some hot cowboys!

Oh yeah and it’s T’s birthday today! He’s really old now in case you were wondering. He’ll probably want to start playing Bingo instead of Halo now.