Rat Poison-- My Poker Beginnings
Christmas 2000
Okay, you're going to think I'm the worst person in the world, but this is a true story.
I'm working the 911 ambulance when we get a call for a woman vomiting up near the city line off Blue Hills Avenue, a lower middle class neighborhood.
We find her in the bathroom. A sixty-eight year old grandmother, and sure enough she's vomiting -- vomiting huge chunks of snow cone blue vomit.
"What'd you eat?" I ask. I've never seen blue vomit before.
"Rat poison," she says in between retches. There is blue vomit all over her clothes and the bathroom floor. Its like Charles Manson in blue has been there.
"I lost six hundred dollars," she cries.
"Did you tell the police?"
"No," She pukes again. "I lost it at the casino." I get hit with the next blast. "I want to die," she gasps.
"This stuff will do it," I say, "But you're not dying today. We need to get you going with us."
While she tells me her sad tale, I put her on oxygen, pop in an IV line, and hook up the heart monitor. We take her in lights and sirens wailing.
At the hospital the medical staff shoves a long plastic tube into the woman's stomach to pump the poison out.
"Why would a nice old lady want to eat rat poison," the triage nurse asks me after I wheel my stretcher out of the room.
"She lost all her money playing poker at Foxwoods," I tell her.
"That's terrible."
"Last week I had another old lady -- dehydrated with altered mental status. Her daughter told me she'd been at Foxwoods playing poker for four days straight and hadn't eaten or taken her medicine."
"They shouldn't let people like that gamble."
"I don't know," I say. "I'm thinking about going down to Foxwoods myself. I don't know anything about poker, but I'm liking my chances if my competition is ladies like those two."
"You're awful," she says, "By the way you've got blue vomit on your pants," the nurse says.
***
Hey, call me cold-hearted, but that's the story of how I came to sit at the tables. I may not be able to bluff T.J. Cloutier, make a read on Doyle Brunson, or outthink Howard Lederer, but when it comes to checkraising old ladies, I show no hesitation. No hesitation.
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en gros c'est un mec qui raconte ses début au poker en 2000, il était infirmier et lors d'une intervention sur une tentative de suicide, la vieille dame lui apprend qu'elle a perdu gros sur les tables de poker de Foxwoord, à l'hopital l'infirmière lui confirme que ce n'est pas la première fois qu'elle voit ça... la semaine d'après notre infirmier va se poser sur les tables de poker de foxwood :p j'adore ~