On Monday night, Rachelle and I babysat her nephews, William and Samuel, aged 5 and 7. We love these boys and endeavor to spoil them. Rachelle chooses to do this by giving them candy, whereas my preferred method is to give them Scratch N’ Win tickets. I think it’s wise to get children thinking about various investment strategies at a young age, plus they’re naturals!! These boys were born to gamble, and they took to Scratching N’ Winning like ducks to water!
As it’s a sin to waste God given talent, I have been cultivating their gifts. For about a year now, I’ve been looking after the boys for one afternoon a month, so that their parents might have a little break. On these field trips, I take the boys to pool halls, card and craps games and the racetrack, instead of the lame-o libraries, galleries and parks that his boring parents think we’re going to visit.
On these outings, I teach them the subtle arts of gambling. For instance, Samuel, the younger of the two, has a terrible tell when he plays poker. If he gets bad cards, he just starts crying. Of course, the only way to truly learn is through experience, and I think that ever since I won all the money his Nana gave him for his birthday off a bad bluff he made, he’s learned his lesson about crying when you have a weak hand.
At any rate, they’ve improved considerably over the last year and are now regularly winning at their recess poker games. The boys have paid their dues, I think, and it’s time for them to graduate to something a little more lucrative. Through my bookie Goran, I have arranged for the boys to work as attendants at the game that Goran runs in the basement of his cousin’s automotive shop on Dupont. The boys, who will work for tips, will clean out the ashtrays, fetch beer and do little drug runs for the prostitutes that come in for the high roller games. In short, they’re going to get invaluable gambling experience.
However, as their parents are unimaginative squares, we are going to have to do this in secret. And so, from now on, Wednesday night will be “violin lessons” with Uncle Mike. Whatever. No matter, I’m very excited about this new bonding opportunity, and am very keen to see what uses we might find for the chemistry set they got for getting good grades last year.