poker

I was reading Jessica Claire's blog yesterday and she was having a giveaway for a cute little poker set. To enter the contest you had to comment on her post. Thinking about poker reminded me of how much our kids love to play. It's funny really...they've been playing poker forever. And they didn't need chips to play with either. Who needs chips when you have toothpicks, lol! As they got older they taught their friends how to play and they had a regular little summer time poker ring going. The stakes weren't very high. They just played with money they highjacked out of our junk drawer. They would pack up their ziploc bag full of pennies, nickels and dimes and their cards and head down the street where four of their friends lived to play 5 card stud. So, that in itself is pretty funny. They were pretty young.

Anyway, on to the funny part. One or the other of our children had spent a weekend with their favorite Aunt in San Antonio. My sister and I had agreed to meet at the half way point between Houston and San Antonio to do the kid swap. If you are a Houstonian or San Antonian with family in either city you know that the halfway point is Flatonia, former home of Grumpy's Steak House (sadly the steakhouse has been replaced with McDonald's). In any event, I hopped into our big, blue van with the other three kiddos and headed towards Flatonia. We met up with Aunt Pam, said our good byes and I suddenly have a wonderful idea...how about drive into downtown Flatonia for a little antique shopping? Oh, boy, what fun...HA! We parked and walked around a bit and bought a couple of things I'm quite sure I didn't need and then decided to head home. I had to get gas for the drive home so I pulled into a gas station/pizza parlor and put my last $10.00 into the tank. Back into the driver's seat, turned the key and nothing. Yep, the van refused to start. CRAP! What the heck? The moaning and groaning starts in the back. I can't believe this! Luckily I had a cell phone and called hubby to come to the rescue. It would take him a little while to gather his tools and get there. Always one to fly by the seat of my pants I didn't prepare for anything of this sort to happen. I had just spent my last $10.00 getting gas. Almost immediately the complaining started in the back. "Mommy, I'm hot." "I'm thirsty!" "Mom, can we get some pizza while we wait?????" Cameron, the oldest, was really laying it on thick. "Oh, Gawd, I can't believe this! I can't believe we are going to have to sit here for an hour and a half until Daddy get's here. Can't we do something else. Blah, blah, blah..." This was during what we like to call her Val Filet period. I'm not sure if I'm spelling that right but that is what we used to call her. According to my mom it is a Cajun term having a similar meaning as Prima Dona. It's not a big deal to me to sit in a hot car waiting to be rescued. I'll make the best of any situation. But this one, well, it was going to be tough. I told them I didn't have any more money for pizza, I had just spent my last dime on gas. "Why don't you look around back there and see if there is a book or something you can read. Or we can play I spy," I said. More moaning...Then I started to get annoyed. Hey, a mom can only take so much. So I told them to just lay down and take a nap and make the best of it. A few minutes later, Bubba pops up with a bag full of change he found under the seat. "Hey, mom," he says "I can buy us all pizza with our poker money!" "Your whaaaaaaattttt?" I ask. "Our poker money!!! I forgot it was in here!" "Hey, let me see that!" Sure enough, his little bag full of change bought us all pizza and drinks. Now that's what I call a jackpot! A REAL jackpot! I'm sure the cashier thought we were crazy paying for our pizza with change but that was the best pizza I have ever had. Bubba, Jac and Leigh Leigh were so proud to be buying our lunch too! (And just in case you are wondering why I didn't whip out my handy, dandy debit card or credit card it is because we didn't have one. First of all debit cards were non existent at this time. We had an ATM card but I rarely carried it because I refused to pay money to get MY money out of the bank.)