Aftermath Blog Presents: The Bash (Dawn)

After WaWa, we went home with the Rooster. In the backseat. Get your minds out of the gutter people.
“What do you know about this kind of music,” Joaquin asked, Karol who was pumping Kanye West's "Gone" in the car.
“Oh. I know about this kind of music.”
By the time we dropped him off, thoughts of driving to AC were long gone…especially after getting a text from Ron Lad saying “stay where you are…don’t be such crackheads.”
Fine.
“This sucks,” I said throwing my Wawa made Philly cheese steak in the trash. Nothing like the awesome one Eva bought for me and Train last year. Pout.
“I like what I got,” Karol needled.
“Me too,” said F-train.
“Well, la di da, why don’t you guys buy a house and move in together?”
Bastards.
I got the finger and then F-train went to bed. Karol and I stayed up playing Russian prison card games till about four a.m.
My collapsing lung woke me up pretty early the next day. I sat in bed watching Van Helsing on the DVD player and choking to death, till Karol poked her head out.
“You ready?”
“For what?”
“Uhh…AC!”
“Oh, wait…I thought we weren’t going?’
“Weren’t going yesterday. When it was crazy.”
“Dude, don’t kid yourself…this may not be as crazy as going yesterday…but on the crazy scale, it still ranks.”
“Shut it…you in or not?”
Uhh…hello. Have we met?
“Ok. But. We cannot. I repeat. Cannot tell anyone. Especially F-train…I don’t need to hear anymore of his crackhead comments.”
Dawn’s Poker Rule #37: If anyone tells you that you have a poker problem, stop talking to them.
Alright..shh…he’s coming.
“You sound awesome, Dawn.” Wait…they could hear me choking to death in there and did nothing? Assholes.
“’Sup F-train. How are you doing? Fine morning we’re having, eh?”
He eyed us suspiciously.
“I’m going to shower.”
“Great…fantastic…you do that…we’ll be here.”
Psych!
As soon as the water started running, so did we.
I still had no voice, so my navigating required rolling up all the windows, turning off the radio and AC and whispering instructions at the very bottom of my voice. With hand gestures thrown in as necessary.
“Ok...left exit onto N. 6th street.” Hold up six fingers and wave them around. Point fingers to car roof, signifying North.
“Now, take 76.” Seven fingers…followed by six.
“176?”
No…did I do the number 1? Did I? Shake head vigorously from side to side.
Well, I can’t imagine how that flawless system failed us, but an hour later, we were lost and driving in circles around Pennsylvania.
We stopped at a WaWa to get food and directions.
Karol got cocky.
“Ha! Blackhorse Pike! We’ll be there in fifteen minutes!”
I scoffed.
“I’ll bet you right now…twenty bucks says we’ll be there in half an hour. You win if it takes an hour or more.”
Of course, since I was reading the directions, I knew we were forty-eight miles away from AC before we got lost and no way did getting lost get us closer….so I took the deal.
“I can’t believe you have found the one way to get me to root for getting to AC late.”
Forty five minutes later, we finally made it to the AC Expressway.
“AC Expressway…it’s a tie! I’ll take a tie.” (She had some bonehead idea that since 45 minutes was between her 30 minutes and my hour…45 was a push.)
I’m. Sure. You. Would.
I stuck my hand out defiantly.
“No tie.”
“Cause the Atlantic City Expressway is not Atlantic City, it’s just the road to Atlantic City?”
I nodded by head.
The familiar AC skyline appeared in the horizon a mere thirty minutes after I won my bet.
I should so get a prop bet bonus.
Our first stop was Caesar’s.
Ron Lad and his boys were playing in a tournament and decided to play some ring games there after busting out.
It took Caesar’s 40 minutes to take my buy-in.
My first hand, I called a raise out of position with AT.
The flop came Ace high and I bet about pot. I got one caller.
The turn was another ace and I made the same bet cause I was afraid of the better ace. Of course, when I was immediately min raised, I knew I was up against the most obvious flush of all time.
Well…let’s hope for quads?? A boat??…nope. Give my money to the other guy.
Karol called me over to her table after that and I sat down to her left in the seven seat.
The table was pretty tight, there was one kid with a crazy ass monster stack in the five seat.
“That’s Ron Lad’s friend,” Karol says to me.
Awesome.
The guy to my left was a real chatterbox. “Where are you from?” “Do you like this room?” “I can’t believe it’s gotten so chilly.”
And even though Karol told him that I had laryngitis and couldn’t respond, he continued his dialogue…er…monologue, unabated.
And I couldn’t even say “shut the hell up, guy.” Pout.
I didn’t get many hands at this table and I was already short, but the hand I remember, has me open raising on the button for $12.
I get called by five people.
I have pocket nines and when the flop comes T 8 5 and it checks to Karol, who bets out $15, I fold. She gets one caller.
The turn is 9 and they both check. I gnash my teeth.
The river is a four. Karol and the other guy calls.
He has JT and she has 45.
I am fit to be tied.
But unable to voice the string of foul words to come before and after my “you call my raise with 45off and then bet into me with bottom freaking pair?”
I vow to get revenge.
But it wasn’t to be. I left Caesar’s with $13 plus the $20 “how long will it take us to get to AC” bet which I have changed into red chips.
Karol wanted to go back to Resorts since there was no game going on Thursday night.
What.Ever.
I bought in for $100 and waited for the bad beats to come.
I can tell you, with absolute certainty, that we got 38 hands in the two and a half hours we played at Resorts.
Yah. That’s right. 38.
And despite the fact that, as F-train says, my “memory is not as good as advertised,” I know each hand I got at Resorts because I wrote them all down.
Somewhere between getting my first two hole cards (K2off) and the ten minutes it took to get the next two because the dealers switched shifts and had to count each card and then got in a fight with the players about whose turn it was and the drunk lady that had to consult with her friend about every decision…I decided this was the only way I wasn’t going to kill anyone. Namely, Karol.
For my fourth hand, I got pocket sixes in the SB and completed. BB checks and the flop comes: 6c 7h Th.
The button has been taunting the drunk lady about taking all her chips when he flopped a boat on a previous hand.
I check.
The BB bets twenty and the UTG bets 20.
“Do you have any of that, Jay?” the drunk lady screeches in her Jersey drunken accent and Peg Bundy hair.
“Of course. I flop the nuts every time,” the button replies.
Drunk lady folds, but CO calls.
Jay then raises to $48.
I’ve bought in short, so I stack up my $88 and shove it in.
Everyone folds and Jay says “well, since I flopped the nuts, I call,” he turns over 8s9d.
“You on hearts,” he asks me.
I shook my head and check my cards.
I do have the six of hearts, so I pray to Rule 45 for runner runner hearts.
I do not turn my cards face up.
The turn brings another ten.
“She’s got a boat,” I hear Karol say from her side of the table.
I look up, smile and turn over my sixes.
I win a nice pot and Jay is pissed.
“Guess she felt like gambling. Raise into the nuts.”
Tsk tsk…why doesn’t everyone read my poker blog? Save yourselves the pain.
And although I win a few more nice pots with TPTK, Aces and Kings, I never have to show down again.
Jay and another guy, who presumably assume that because I cannot speak, I must not be able to hear…start talking about how Karol is there “every time he comes to Resorts.” I laugh.
She had two big hands.
Flop is A Q J and she bets $40. Drunk lady calls. The turn is a 5. Karol bets $50, drunk lady calls.
River is 8 and Karol bets another 50.
Drunk lady says “this is probably the worst call I have ever made,” and then calls Karol’s river bet with pocket tens.
She is felted and the whole table curse Karol for making the drunk lady leave.
Then Karol goes all-in on a raggy flop and is called by the poor Asian guy in the seven seat. He has pocket queens. She has pocket aces.
At 8:30, we leave for the Bash.
“Ok…so what’s our story…where have we been all day?”
“Uhhh…shopping in Malvern? Sightseeing?”
I got nothing.
“Ok...how about we answer a question with a question…like, if someone says ‘where’ve you been all day?’ we say ‘What? Where have you been all day?’”
Yeah…Karol’s got nothing either.
“Look, I don’t think anyone will even notice. There’s lots of alcohol at the Bash. Lots.”
We parked the car at the hotel and took a shuttle to the Boathouse.
“Wow…I didn’t think there was anyone left to take over there,” said our cute shuttle drive, “I’ve already started bringing people back. There was one dude asleep in the van, lucky someone knew him or else we were going to have to call the police.”
Karol and I looked at each other.
“TripJax!”
The first familiar face we saw at the Boathouse was Carter.
“HEEY, I win the over!” he says shooting his arms in the air.
F-train came over.
“I lost a bet because of you two. I took the under on 7:18 p.m. because I thought you were social people.”
We laughed.
“So where were you?”
Think fast, Dawn.
“F-train, we’ve been here the whole time. This is the fourth time you’ve asked us where we were and said you lost a bet because of us.”
“Nice try. I’m not as drunk as last year.”
Karol and I were holding fast and sticking to our
“—we were in AC!”
“AC?”
Never trust a Russian.
“Oh...so that’s where you guys disappeared to…I went in to shower and when I came out, they were just gone.”
Sorry, Mr. West is Gone.
“Yeah, well you’re lucky we didn’t take your clothes with us.”
F-train laughed.
“Oh, I took my clothes in there with me. When I woke up Karol was looking all modest and stuff…even though without my contacts I can’t see a damn thing.”
“How modest could I have been? I was just wearing a towel,” She…protested?
Word of our complete and total crackheadedness spread quickly.
Gracie had the best response though.
“Fuck you guys! Going to AC and not telling anyone? We would have gone with you.”
I laughed.
Karol left to go “hang” “outside” with Pauly again.
I met Gus and his lovely girlfriend and we all enjoyed Falstaff’s tasty toothpicks. Speaker asked if I’d gone to Valley Forge for the day.
“Yes, that’s where I was! Beautiful 1/2 No Limit Historical Site!”
“You guys are addicts!”
“Nu uh…addicts go to meetings. We play poker!”
In twenty minutes I was double fisting an Amaretto Sour in the left, and vanilla vodka red bull in the other.
And uh…so…I present a round up of well…things that might have happened next:

It’s possible that Jordan managed to stuff fourteen packs of cards into his pants somehow.
Oh, it’s also possible that Karol and I borrowed one of those said packs and umm…might have possibly lost the King of diamonds [which we are replacing as we speak], when I told her to watch out for the boathouse planks and she said “I did watch…I watched the card fall right between the plank boards.”

Perchance Heather asked me if F-train was known “back home” as “threesome” and Karol asked if the third person was a guy or a girl.

I seem to recall SoxLover pulling me aside at the party to give me “pointers on my no limit hold ‘em” game.
Which triggers an unrelated memory being offered $100 to douse SoxLover with my drink.
Hmmm…and I seem to recall that offer being doubled and then tripled…did I accept?
Oops…sorry Sox. Money was involved and Dawn likes money.

Joaquin might have spent two hours telling me that my girlfriend Karol was “smoking hot” and I was one lucky woman. He also asked Karol how she would like to wake up with him in the morning listening to Tribe Called Quest. And then he demonstrated on my leg how he would make sweet, sweet Mexican love to her. Oh, and lest I feel left out he assured me that he also liked his “chocolate thunder.” Shit. I can’t believe I just reminded Pauly of that.
Joaquin then asked to be invited to our gay wedding in Massachusetts.

At some point I recall lip synching “Get Back” on the dance floor with StB while finishing my fifth Amaretto.

I had an awesome conversation with Pokerwolf, at the end of which I am fairly sure he promised to host a poker game in D.C. Virginia!

The bartender looked at Karol and I and asked us where we went after she saw us upstairs at earlier that night…Uhh.. “right here?” Yeah man.

I think I saw Joaquin and Carter peeing together in the Boathouse parking lot.

And I heard someone saying that Carter spent the night in Speaker's bed, only to have someone else say “mmm…that’s one hot bed.” Just sayin. Not me. Someone. Else. Someone else.

Then I was talking to Gavin about the Circuit heads up match with Live At The Bike. “Hey, I saw your heads up match with Bart Hanson, Gavin!” “Did you see that?” he asked. Ummm…yes…remember a second ago when I said “Hey, I saw your heads up match with Bart Hanson?" That was me! We hung out in the parking lot with Gavin, until Carter drove up the roundabout blasting Eminem’s drug ballad. Then somebody, with red hair and Russian ancestry invited everyone up to Pauly’s room to party.

I remember Karol and I roaming the halls at 4 a.m. asking “where is everyone?” A not-so-strange man opening the door and saying “we’re in here,” us going “ok” and following him inside. Only to find him alone with a pizza.
“Oh God…this is how it ends for Karol and Dawn.”

I remember coming downstairs to a group of hung over bloggers sitting in the hotel lobby and hearing the following conversation:
“Hey, who gave F-train that hickey.” Silence. “Wait. Why is everyone looking at me? Veneno was there too.” Everybody laughed. Ole threesome strikes again. I went to go tell Karol. But she was too busy threatening my life unless I got a late check-in.

The hotel, unfortunately, would not accommodate her lazy ass and we left by noon.
Just in time for me to hear Carter asking Big Mike for a lift to the Boathouse to pick up his car. Big Mike had just returned from dropping the Spacepeople off at the airport and quickly agreed to take Carter to his car. Except..and again..I reiterate the double fisting and the five amaretto sours, but...
“Um…Carter, you drove your car back to the hotel last night. Remember? Me, Karol and Gavin were in the parking lot and you gave Rooster a lift and you were blasting Eminem?”
“Fuck…I drove last night?”
“Yes…I am fairly certain that was you doing donuts in the parking lot.”
“Shit…how am I not in jail right now?”

Two dogs tried to eat my face off. I think F-train had them trained.

When Karol finally meandered her way downstairs, we decided to get breakfast at a local Friendly’s. We waited on line for like twenty minutes. During which time I may have said “ok, I’ll stand outside, so we can get seated faster. Just don’t tell them that the third is a “black,” then I let loose a “no fucking way” and a “god damn how long is this fucking wait?”
A middle aged mother slapped her hands over the ears of the two kids at her side. Left hand covering one’s left ear and the right covering the other’s right ear.
“Umm…you know, I think we should go,” said Karol inching away from me.
“Hey, I agree. I’ve already eaten, plus the black one can’t stop dropping the F-bomb.”
We slunk out of there.
I had fallen asleep in the back and Karol had apparently taken F-train hostage cause we ended up hitting a Cracker Barrel in Jersey. It was my first time frequenting a Cracker Barrel. One no longer has to imagine what it would look like if Little House on the Prairie mated with Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman …

I must have been tired or hung over cause I seem to remember F-train calling me the “retarded cousin” as I tried to mime my breakfast order to the waitress, yet I do not remember my fist cracking his bony little body…

Ah, oh well…it’s not like I’ll never see him again.

All in all, good times, good times, hazy amaretto colored memories.