Planning for the trip began in earnest about a month ago and as the departure date drew nearer, the anticipation grew higher. Humorous e-mails flew back and forth last week and by the time Saturday rolled around, we were all ready to have a great weekend.
Having called "shotgun" 6 weeks ago, I hopped into the front seat when we all met in Newburgh and Annette took control of the snack bags in the back while Donna drove. The first leg of our journey was spent mostly talking about how great it would be to win, how little money we had available to spend on gambling (Annette is recently laid-off and I am going to be laid-off in a few weeks), how ridiculously high the hotel room is costing, etc. Annette had never been to Turning Stone and was not sure what to expect, but was looking forward to seeing "Dorothy and her Ruby Red Slippers" (she is in love with the Wizard of Oz slot machines). After a short time, we decided to play Tri-Bond which was sophomorically easy for the brain trust trio to master but it did make the time go by quickly and before we knew it we had arrived.
Donna went to pick up our pre-paid bingo tickets, while I escorted Annette to the Diamond Card Registration booth (you use a debit-type card for all gaming at Turning Stone). It was just a short wait on the bingo line until we had our admission tickets and since we were going to be using TEDs (formally known as The Electronic Dabber, these mini computers do all the work for you) we didn't need any prep time. We dropped our bags off at our pre-assigned seats, met our table mate and then took off for the casino.
When we came back to the bingo hall in time for the Early Bird Warm Ups, we met the rest of our table mates who all seemed rather nice. Good thing, too, because whoever gets to sit with us is most definitely going to get free entertainment with their admission price so it's nice when they can appreciate it!
As we always do, we had agreed beforehand to play as partners to increase our chances of winning (27 cards vs. 9) and to share the wealth. Last time we won only $100 and that was split with 2 other players so our partnership take was $33....hardly sharing the "wealth" but a bingo is a bingo. But as usual we were optimistic! Strangely enough none of us were even waiting any of the games....someone in the hall would yell BINGO and we'd all still need 3 or 4 numbers. It wasn't very exciting and with the computer playing for us there wasn't much going on except for some snacks and a newspaper that we passed back and forth. That was until the Eiffel Tower pattern...... Annette needed only 5 numbers when the rest of us were still in double digits. Then she needed four....then three......and here came another one of the numbers in her pattern and suddenly the only thing standing between us and the $10,000 was O-69. Three more numbers were called and Donna began the mantra "nobody yell...nobody yell....nobody yell..." At first I was thinking "why is she saying that? IF O 69 comes out we're gonna be yelling like crazy!" But then I realized she was sending out a message to the crowd that nobody should get bingo on any of the numbers that were being called! Meanwhile, Annette had lost most of the color in her face and was suffering from palpitations. When the yellow ball popped up on the tv screen we held our breath and when the caller turned it around so we could see that it was in fact O-69 we were all like "oh my God!" It seemed forever until the caller announced the number at which time we were free to yell B I N G O and yell we did. In fact, we yelled so loud that we didn't hear that someone else also had bingo (bummer) so our prize was $5k rather than $10k but it was still the most any of us had ever won so it was mind blowing!
We only waited two other times the rest of the day, once for O 72 and once for I 29, but to no avail. After we paid for the hotel room and gas/tolls, our net was about $1500 each so a great weekend suddenly became a PHENOMENALLY great weekend with the pressure off and we could play all the games we wanted to without worrying about what we'd do with our time once we ran out of money. Of course, we were all super savvy and took plenty of the winnings home with us!
Having only 4 hours of sleep two nights in a row made us a little punchy and the car ride home was a 3 hour laugh fest although I can't even say what was so funny. The only thing I know is by the time we got back to Newburgh I had gone through a small pile of napkins that I had used to wipe the tears streaming out of my eyes, I had a belly ache and could barely catch my breath from all the laughter.
Winning was awesome, but having these amazing friends is priceless!!!!
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