October 25
Unsure of what my assignment would be, I brought everything last night: both pairs of shoes, inside and outside undershirts, the whole nine yards. I was in the changing room preparing to work inside when Radtke pops in and says I’m at Eddie 1.
Crap! I don’t want to be at Eddie 1. Since being switched to guest parking Eddie – 1 has fallen out of favor with everyone. I am not completely dressed and debate whether to put the outside uniform on, ultimately deciding it would be too much work to change pants.
Good thing, too, because Radtke, God bless him, brokered a swap with Blakely, and I ended up being Charlie 4. Here is your hour-by-hour recap:
2300 – Patrolled the west end. Your first hour, of course, you spend scoping out the chick situation, finding out where your faves are and figuring out their break schedule and whatnot. Blanca is dealing right on the west end of pit 5, but Lisa, Casse and Letty are all in pit 2, which is in the east end, which is okay because I’ve scheduled to rove the east end at midnight. I’m at the podium reporting my initial findings to Radtke when I’m sent to the brewery to retrieve a found purse. I bring it back to the podium and Radtke and I are inventorying its contents and we find an ID and a key for the Polo Towers, a timeshare across the street. So I call Maria and ask her to page Mrs. Smith and put me thru to the Polo Towers. The lady there says yeah, the Smith’s are registered and puts me through to their room. I am leaving a message for them when Mrs. Smith and her husband walk up! I am not making that up. I end my message by telling them to ignore this message because they are standing right in front of me, a pretty good job of ad-libbing which gets a few laughs.
0000 – My plans to spend the hour stalking Lisa, Casse (a very pretty, older Dominican woman. To annoy her, and, get a laugh, I’ll sometimes ask her how things in neighboring Haiti are) and Letty are foiled when I am sent on a goddamn slot tech escort for the entire hour. Some currency acceptors in some machines are being changed and Mark has to go and take the old cans out and leave the new ones at the machine for installation later. Tragically, this takes the whole hour.
0100 – I spend most of the hour doing fills, though I do get a very nice compliment during this hour, by a Monte Carlo regular, whose name, I think, is Belinda. She’s fairly young, bleached blonde and pretty thin and I’m wandering around near the cage when she comes up from behind and says what’s up and “Boy, you’re looking good! I could see your muscles from way over there!” God bless this woman.
0200 – 10-10. I take it with Radtke, who is starting 482, and he has both good news and bad news on the chick front. The good news is his new woman, Natalie, consented to a date with him; the bad news is that she’s moving to swing shift next week. Radtke was initially devastated by this, but I told him that for the working bachelor this is probably ideal. I mean, when things invariably go south you don’t want the distraction of running into her at work every effing day. Besides, they still have the same days off, so it will probably all work out.
0230 – West pit drop with Code Four Carlin. I volunteer to do the grunt work and go from table to table taking out the old boxes and putting in the new ones and Code Four Carlin is left to man the cart.
I volunteer to do the grunt work because going from table to table popping boxes is a great way to get face time with your favorite dealers. Unfortunately, all of them except for Letty are on break, a tragic development, though I do speak a little Spanish to Letty, which is funny because I am no longer semi-fluent like I used to be. Letty thinks this is cute…Or I think she thinks it’s cute. She might only be tolerating it.
0300 – 482. Complete crap in the EDR. The chicken looks dry and I settle for some pepper steak, one of those hash brown triangles that goes directly to your hips and a taquito. I then retire to PBX where the big news was that Maria and her boyfriend, whose name I still do not know, celebrated their nine-month anniversary.
0400 – Podium. 88Dick comes by to BS and tell some groaner jokes.
0500 – Validators with Radtke. There is big fun when a machine is opened and a dollar bill flutters out. This requires me to notify dispatch there is money out, report the bank and machine number, the amount, the type of can and who’s in charge and wait while they tell surveillance, which is funny because if you don’t think surveillance is monitoring both our radio traffic and every move you make during this evolution you are high.
0600 – I finish up the night with an hour at Eddie 2, the employee entrance. Out of habit, I make a fresh pot of coffee, though it is too late for me to indulge but there is always someone coming or going who appreciates a fresh cup of joe.
October 21
October 26
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