The feeling of the airplane settling on the runway in Portland was a fine one. I was exhausted, and ready to stretch out in my own bed and sleep for a week!
Lee and I had done some really crazy things in Reno, and sleeping wasn't one of them. But knocking off a huge win on a $1 slot machine doesn't exactly happen every day, suddenly we were richer than we had ever been in our lives.
I remember the look on the Cab driver's face as I pulled a wad of bills out of my shirt pocket, digging through them looking for a twenty and a five to pay him. He would have really been floored if he knew what was in the other pockets, let alone in Lee's purse!
Our car was parked right where we left it, I fired it up and we made the 30 mile trip to our nice little country home.
Lee and I just threw the suitcases in the middle of the living room, I dug wads of $100 bills out of my pockets and stacked them on the table, she did the same with her purse. There was $38,000.00 in cash, plus the huge check. It hit me just then how stupid we were, packing that kind of cash onto an airplane. It was a wonder someone didn't stuff a .357 up our noses!
I put the money in a Paper sack and stuffed it in a dresser drawer, nothing to do about it until Monday when the bank opened.
It was then that I noticed the light blinking on our message machine, so I walked over and hit the button. "You have 62 messages" the computer voice said.
That was a surprise, normal would be 3 or 4. I hit the play button, two dozen of them were requests for appointments, the rest all wanted to either find a time to meet with me about some stupid investment, or it was someone I didn't know wanting me to call them back. The whole damn tape was full of that, and the tape had run out, there must have been more. Just then the phone rang, the caller ID said "Unavailable", so I pulled the plug from the wall.
We locked the door, nervous now, I moved the couch over in front of it just in case, and we went to bed. I woke up to a knock on the door several times, but I didn't get up....
Monday morning we woke up and went down to the local credit union, made our deposits. There was lots of back patting, and hands shoved at me, it was a bit of a pain in the ass, and that's a fact.
I called the Massage Therapy school where I teach, more than 3 hours late, letting them know I wasn't coming in. My boss understood, he had already covered my class. Then we ran down to the Post Office and picked up the mail. The local paper was in the pile. There on the front page was the story of my win, complete with an old picture from 10 years before when I was on some silly government citizen's board, and they had taken a couple of snapshots. How the hell they even found out, I don't know, but there it was!
"I think we got a problem!" I told Lee. She looked at me and mentioned that it would blow over soon, boy I hoped she was right.
Back at the house, I plugged the phone in, and it rang instantly! I looked at the caller ID, and it was my 6 O'clock massage appointment, Mary. I picked up, her sweet voice said she was just calling to confirm. I almost cancelled, but if I was ever going to get back to normal, I had best just do it! Mary is a pretty little Brunette, maybe 10 pounds extra on her 5'2" frame. She had had 3 of my sessions, and all just as normal as can be. While she would allow her breasts undraped for my work, that was it. Just what I needed, a nice normal session to get back into the swing of things. So I said, "Sure, see you at 6." I swear I heard her giggle just before she hung up.
