TheBanyanTree: lolits and slots

[Russ Doden]

Tobies story about in her Life Stories 88 about the little old lady in 
the wheel chair in Vegas brought back a memory for me.  

I went to the University of Nevada in Las Vegas after being 
separated from the active duty in the Navy.  While I was in the 
service (and before I turned 21), my parents had moved there for the 
dryer climate and the promise of good jobs for my dad.  Due to a little 
known quirk of Nevada law, all residents that had a high school 
diploma HAD to be accepted to the state university system.  That 
was the only way I was going to get into college with my horrible gpa 
out of high school.  Since my parents had moved there while I was in 
the military, I had established residency by proxy to to school I went.  
I was under academic probation, but I was in college!

The gaming in Las Vegas held little interest for me - I knew what the 
house odds were and they are not favorable to anyone but the 
house.  Some times though friends would come to town and want to 
go casino hopping.   I found it rather dull and not much fun, but they 
always found it great fun.  I guess it was just because I saw it all the 
time - and what it could do to some people.

Anyhow, one day I was in a casino with some friends and I had a few 
coins in my pocket.  A lolits was just walking away from a slot 
machine.  OK, so what is a lolits?  Little Old Lady In Tennis Shoes.  
You see a lot of them there.  They get their social security check and 
head straight to the casino.  

It was kind of an understood thing in Vegas at the time, that if you 
were coming back to a slot machine in a few minutes (say after 
getting more change) you put a cup over the handle.  That was a 
way of saying "Occupied" at the time.  This lolits hadn't put a cup 
over the handle and had scooped out or used all the coins in the tray 
so I figured she was finished.  I put 3 coins in and got the usual 
nothing, but on the 4th coin, all hell broke loose.  Lights flashed, and 
noise makers were going off and all kinds of things.  I had hit a pretty 
nice "progressive" jackpot of several hundred dollars.  Not bad for a 
few nickles!  I was standing there waiting for the proper people to 
come over and verify my winnings and get my a check when some 
other kind of hell broke loose.  

Remember the lolits that had left the machine?  She had returned 
just about the time I "hit" on that slot.  She promptly swung her cane 
and hit me in the back of the knees and down I went.  The next thing 
I knew she was jumping up and down on my back, beating me about 
the head and shoulders with her cain, cussing a blue streak about 
taking "her" machine and "her" winnings.  In my 4 years in the Navy, 
I don't think I had heard such a creative use of profanity as that lolits 
had! It didn't take security long to get her off me but it seemed like 
forever.  They asked if I wanted to press charges and I told them no, 
just keep that crazy woman away from me.  They threw her out the 
doors to the casino, none to gently and to make amends for my 
being assaulted not only gave me my check, but several coupons for 
dinner in the restaurant there.  

To this day, if a person has a cain, I tend to keep an eye on them, 
just in case.

Russ