Boycott Exxon Car Wash

Today’s post is a venting. It is also my 100th post.

Yesterday I went outside to hand-wash my Ford Explorer & Taurus. But, I couldn’t find my car washing stuff. So, I sat outside and watched Mikayla play in the backyard. I had a nice lazy day. I napped, watched the 3rd World Series of Poker circuit event, and just enjoyed a lazy afternoon. Later, we decided to go to Wal-Mart. $0.88 and $1.32 items add up fast – and that’s all I’m saying about Wal-Mart right now. For some reason Mikayla had a breakdown when we left Wal-Mart. So, I thought, “Well, I wanted to get my Explorer washed. I bet going to a car wash would make Mikayla happy.” So we went.

$5 and 3 minutes later, hundreds of dollars of damage was done to my vehicle. My rear windshield wiper was all bent out of shape – completely ruined. More than that, while we were in the car wash and it was being all bent out of shape, it scraped the paint off my back end in a few places (4” scrapes). I’m no auto expert, but I believe that is not cheap to have fixed. I was mad for quite a while.

Fortunately, I think I was calmed down by the time we started playing poker. I think the pizza roll dinner helped that. 10 people started and I finished 8th. For the second time in a row, I went out on the last hand before someone with a lot of chips had to leave and we evenly divided up his chips. That was a little frustrating, but I got over it. I think everyone had a lot of fun. The bean dip was good, the Pepsi was good, the chips were good, and the brownies were best. I dealt most of the time and then sometime after I went out, JD took over for me so I could focus on my food.

I know why I didn’t do well last night. I got almost zero cards. The few times I had a hand, someone else at the table had a slightly better hand. I did a good job at laying hands down. Well, maybe not the last one. I hadn’t seen a face card in well over an hour and then I’m dealt ATs. I raise before the flop and ATM (Eugene) calls me. The flop comes T 6 9 rainbow. I bet and ATM calls. Either the turn or the river is a 7, I don’t remember which, but the turn was checked. I have top pair with an ace kicker. Having called a raise before the flop, I put ATM on a really small pair or over cards that didn’t hit. There was a lot in the pot and I was getting low on chips. I move all in and ATM calls me and shows the 58 to make a straight. I was shocked. How could he call a raise with those cards? He had a nice size stack (11,200 after he took mine – with 40,000 in play), so I guess he could afford to play anything. Especially since he knew it was his last hand – you have to play your last hand. It was just a bad read on my part. There is no way I would have put him on a 58. The ATM just took deposits last night. Only one major withdrawal was made. If this keeps up, he might have to look for a new nickname ;)

I have greatly enjoyed this blog over the last 6 months. Hopefully I’ll continue it. I have a rhythm down now. And I never seem to have a shortage of topics to write about. /me raises a glass of Pepsi, “Here’s to the next 100 days and 100 posts!”