We did some gambling last night, despite our need to cut back on expenses as a result of our joint retirement. To partially fund our impractical whim, I recently sold some stamps that were organized in a collection by my mother. My grandfather was a Postmaster, so they shared an interest in postage stamps as dedicated philatelists. I never caught the bug, just as they would have never gone to a casino. My interest was more coin collecting, so after my mother passed, I begrudgingly moved her boxed collection from state to state, hoping to find someone who might take it off my hands. While we were in Austin, I offered them for free to a stamp collecting club but failed to get a response. I decided to take them to a neighborhood shop last week, and they surprisingly made me a cash offer.

I took that cash, along with a small ATM withdrawal, to Ilani last night. I thought I might get a little help from above from my mother. The casino and entertainment center is only about a forty-five minute drive from our apartment into Washington state, yet we’d yet to visit in the three years since it was built. Before we eventually relocate out of state, my wife is driven to make sure we do everything the Northwest has to offer. As a result, she made a reservation on “The Reservation” at Michael Jordan’s new restaurant, a target on both her dining-out and must-visit destination lists. We arrived about two hours early to play some video slots and hopefully secure our financial future with a big jackpot.

As I continued to feed cash into the mouth of the hungry machine, I did manage to win 1,000 quarters with four 4’s – that’s $250 for those of you that are mathematically challenged. However, after another hour of play it was long gone. My wife performed even less favorably on her ATM withdrawal. When we went to dinner, she thought she had transferred her winnings to the plastic membership card we were issued upon entry. It turns out that she never cashed out, so the next person who used that machine got an instant bonus payout. At least, somebody got lucky last night. All and all, we were both sad losers, but dinner was good. Like Michael Jordan we gave it our best shot…but Jackpot…not!