For Every Defeat There Shall Be A Victory
Oh what a crushing loss. I realized yesterday, somewhere between Brett Favre’s third and fourth interception, that it’s not so much that I love the Packers (that can’t be questioned) but damn I have equal parts hate for the Vikings. In fact, I just can’t hate them enough. My supply of hate is not bound by conventional sports wisdom that traditionally follows big trains of hair hype and turnaround bandwagons. I wish so many bad things upon my hometown team that I better stop typing about it now before I confess too much, and you gentle reader, think me some kind of maniacal hyena who puts way too much on the weekly whims of a floating pig skin.
After receiving such a defeat as the one that I was dealt yesterday, I knew my luck would turn around if I could just get to the bar and swim peacefully in a tide pool of Jim Beam whiskey. Thank god the pool was open! Friday night I had lost all my money to a pack of of bandits that call themselves the Lost Marbles. When I left the tables at 5 AM Saturday morning, I was a much poorer man, in all respects.
With Friday/Saturday’s financial losses still fresh on my mind and the smell of the Packers turd still fresh in my nose, I sauntered over to the local country bar where the band is always excellent because the singer sounds exactly like Elvis Presley making love to a peanut butter and banana sandwich. Before I could even order a drink the Pull-Tab stand called out to me, beckoning me, seducing me with those flashy plastic tubular rope lights that were blinking alternating colors of blue, green, purple and pink. It was a moment my friends of magical realism. Never have I been so sure about anything in my whole life then when I walked up to the window to pull me a championship Pull-Tab. I bought ten when I knew I only needed one. I asked the old lady working the stand for ‘ten good ones’. I felt a connection with the Pull Tab lady. She knew what I was after. Even in her homemade embroidered purple Vikings sweatshirt her empathy for this sorry beaten man in front of her, this poor loser handing over his drinking money, was crushingly heartfelt. And then boom. First pull. $150. Two tridents and a King’s crown with a thick red line passing through all three was all it took to turn the weekend upside down on it’s damaged little head. Whoop. Whoop. Gave her a $10 tip and then the drinks were on me. Fuck the Packers. At least I am still a winner.
One last curious question for this Monday morning. Where do all the sweet old ladies who work in the hundreds of Pull-Tab cages throughout Minnesota bars come from? Why are they there? What is it about the the job that seems to attract the exact same person wherever you go? Is it written into the state gambling laws? I don’t know but god bless them just the same.