Poker the Spartan Way

I try to play poker once a week and Friday was my night. Tournaments in Southern Maryland are low in the eye-candy department and high on the angry-drunk-o-meter. Here is the closest picture I could find resembling 75% of the competition.



I generally don’t drink while I play, but sometimes I have a beer at the start to bring myself down a notch. For as long as I’ve been playing, I still get shaky at the start and my nervousness takes on a life of its own. This should sum up the science of it all:

Luckily for you, millions of years of evolution have endowed you with a set of
automatic weapons that take over in the event of an emergency. At the sight of
the tiger, your hypothalamus sends a message to your adrenal glands and within
seconds, you can run faster, hit harder, see better, hear more acutely, think
faster, and jump higher than you could only seconds earlier. …

All functions of your body not needed for the struggle about to commence are shut
down. Digestion stops, sexual function stops, even your immune system is temporarily turned off. If necessary, excess waste is eliminated to make you light on your feet.

Now pay special attention to that last sentence. And multiply that by three. At least being a gal means I’ve pretty much got the bathroom to myself.

There is one location where I no longer play, and for good reason. Take a closet. Now add a sink, a trashcan, and two bathroom stalls. Paint everything so many times that the texture is all warped and bubbly. Handicapped accessible? Pfff. These stalls were so cramped that my hip hit the TP roll and my knees extended beyond the point where the stall door would close. I’m completely ill that my body is touching anything but the toilet seat.

I’m claustrophobic. I’ve added panic on top of panic and went back out to my gang.

“If I’m not back in 10 minutes, I’ve had an anxiety attack on the toilet. Get the Lysol and then get me.”

(abrupt non-segue-ic switch back to Friday)

I had an early beer and a lot of water and left pretty late with words like ‘MF’ and ‘stupid MF’ and ‘dumbass MF’ running through my brain. I sort of cycled through these for five minutes with the soundtrack from ‘300’ blaring while I pictured this:



FYI: That’s me with the sword. The other guy, I’ll call “Flush Draw”.

As the edge came off my fantasy, I realized I had a lot of liquid sloshing around my bladder. It’s at least a 30 minute drive home. After 5 minutes I needed to pee. After 15 minutes I really needed to pee. But we’re closing in on midnight and I’m really not going to stop anywhere to take care of things when boogey men are waiting in the bushes (previous fantasy not withstanding). I cannot laugh, or sneeze, or even sing really loudly – it could tip the delicate bladder balance.

By the time I got to the bridge, I began my usual role-playing of how-would-I-escape-the-car-if-I-ran-off-the-bridge-and-hit-the-water. My next thought was: “If I hit the river and got out, I could totally pee in the water.”

These are my deep thoughts.

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Please click on Humor-Blogs for thoughts that may not be so deep as mine.