HOW MANY BINGO PLAYERS?

 Did I mention it rained all day Monday?  I'm on my weather app constantly now, praying for good weather for this coming weekend.  I'm hoping Mother Nature gets it all out of her system before then.  That also means a check of my schedule, which has gone off the deep end.  WAY too many things to get done in WAY too short of time.  

First off ... let's have lunch with the Bingo crew at our usual haunt.  Why oh why I decided to change up my order, I'll never know.  Those two chicken tacos, were bad with a capital B.  Hardly any chicken at all, stuffed into a corn tortilla and thrown in the deep fryer.  This is a taco?

After I let the grease drain out for 60 seconds, I took a bite, only to find the oil was on the verge of rancid.  I ate one in silence.  The second one stayed on my plate as my stomach screamed WHAT ARE YOU DOING?  A good way to start off Bingo!

But first ... as I walked by the lodge room, I heard keys being played.  I'm one of the people who voted to have our 111 year old grand piano repaired no matter what the cost.  I may have to back step on that one.

It was purchased by this lodge specifically FOR this room, and has lived here ever since.  For the last maybe 30 years, it has not been used much at all.  It appears the inside was used to hide drinks at one time, making it even more of a mess.

How lucky could I be ... our piano repair guy had come up from Modesto to take a look and give us an estimate.  He was tuning it as I watched and listened.  What a difference he made!!!  Still not truly up to par, but WOW!!  It seems the felts are very worn, some actually torn in half.  The wires really need to be replaced, as do the strings.  Needless to say, it will cost a small fortune and I'm not sure I'm comfortable with spending that much money.  I'd tell you HOW much but you would faint.

These are the strings.  There are 80 of these babies that are 111 years old.  They are stuck into the bottom board with glue and a toothpick.  Can you imagine how long it will take to remove and replace those?  And that's only one small portion of the required program.  

Anyway .... after helping him for a bit, I was off to BINGO!!  

There were problems.  It seems a couple of volunteers bought some pull tab game cards (more than once) and had players PLAY those cards.  Three have won payouts.  That makes the peasants bring out every shovel, arrow, sword, flaming torch and pitchfork they have at their fingertips.  

I told the King, and we agreed that was not allowed.  Especially since it is totally against the rules.  It might have been overlooked, except one of those volunteers went out and screamed like a banshee that he won.  That was a telltale error on his part.  Volunteers cannot buy ANY bingo tickets now.  

And then the crowds came.  YIKES!  Every other bingo game in the county has been shut down for Christmas.  That means they all came here.  I mean really, the line was clear to the back wall for an entire TWO solid hours as I went as fast as I could to get them all in before games started at 6:30.  

To make it worse, you know those red tickets we used to hand out?  THIS time we handed out GOLD tickets worth $10.00 each.  I gave warning after warning ... DO NOT LOSE THESE TICKETS, they will NOT be replaced.  When we start back up in January (we are now closed for two weeks) they can bring the ticket and we will pretend it's a ten dollar bill.  Merry Christmas to the peasants!  They were ecstatic!

I waited not in vain.  The first peasant came up and said her "friend" lost her ticket.  I'm sorry, but no tickets will be replaced.  I can almost tell you which ones will try it.  She walked away without a word, so I know it was a ruse.  Most don't even try any more because they know I don't fall for anything.  

Next up our usual thief showed up.  This lady ... she tries to steal from us every single week.  She spends a fortune playing and many times doesn't even recognize that she won ... and no one at the table will tell her because she tries to cheat.  She only gets a few cards, then comes back to get a few more, grabbing five and holding them in her hand while telling me she has one.  EVERY TIME!  And every time she gets caught.  She also rudely pushes others out of the way and cuts in line.  She must be 70 something, maybe older, and knows better!

So how many bingo players are in the room?  158 of them.  That's a record for us.  They were rewarded with $300 pots for most every game instead of the usual $250.  They were some kind of happy campers over THAT.  

It being too close to a full moon, the infernal machine went ballistic, printing out "received on account" tickets instead of PAYOUTS.  What a pain THAT was.  It was WAY past my bed time when I got home.  The good news is I am NOT the one who has to collect those gold tickets come January.  My replacement has me on speed dial.

And so ended another busy day, which will be followed today by cooking from 1:00 til 4:00, then serving dinner to the seniors.  AND I have company coming for the night.  She will have to park in the driveway til I get home.  It's going to be another crazy one!!