Forty dollars in forty seconds

Having exhausted our credit cards, and depleted our cash reserves shopping in Panama City, we headed back to the hotel.

We were staying at the Sheraton Hotel and Conference Center in downtown Panama. Our room was on the 7^th floor with a beautiful view looking out over the Pacific ocean.  The room was large, clean and luxurious, with 2 very comfortable queen size beds.  Once we had unpacked showered and dressed we headed down to the restaurant for dinner.  There was a choice of a la carte, or buffet, which looked delicious, and it was only $20 per head so we opted for that.  The food was good, but not great, but then I’m particularly fussy when I eat out.   After dinner we wandered around the hotel, looking at the shops and spa facilities, they were nice, but as is usual in 4 star hotels, rather overpriced.  We both tried on a couple of beautiful shawls, but they were way more than either of us wanted to spend, and we joked about winning the money to buy them.

There was a casino attached to the hotel so just for a laugh we decided that we would risk $20 each and try our luck at the black jack table.  Maybe we would get lucky and win enough to buy our shawls.

I have only gambled a couple of times in my life, I’m too nervous to lose, Bob works too hard for his money for me to throw it away, so it’s a past time I usually avoid. 

The first time I gambled was with my friend Alan in Wisconsin, we both bet $20 and played for over an hour, walking away with $262.  This however was not to be the case today.  Frieda had never played Black Jack before so I said, “watch me and I will show you how its done”, what I should have said was “let me show you how to throw away $20 in 20 seconds” because that is exactly what happened.  I didn’t have time to think, let alone enjoy the game; the dealer was so fast my 4 goes at $5 a hand just disappeared in seconds.  There was no fun, it was just throwing money away.  However, Frieda said she would like to have a go, so we chose another table, as Frieda was handing over her $20 bill, another gambler arrived at the table and casually threw down $1,000.  “I have never played this before” Frieda told him, “have you any advice?”

“I will help you,” he said;  which he didn’t.

Well, Frieda did exactly the same as me, and lost her $20 in 20 seconds, but as we were the only people at the table with the $1000 gambler, we stayed to watch him.  It was sickening; he bet $100 or $200 each hand and won more hands than he lost, walking away after only a few minutes at the table with over $2000…