CasinoPaloozing Can Be Hazardous To Your Health

Sweet Gummi Mary! CasinoPalooza 4 almost put Mrs. Hillbilly Mom on the disabled list!

It all started on Monday evening. We checked in and left our stuff in the hotel, then hit the road in A-Cad to visit six more casinos. While driving from one to another (they're only 5-10 minutes apart), I opened up the glove compartment and offered Sis and Ex-Mayor some lotion. My hands always suffer on CasinoPaloozas. I think it's from the constant handwashing. I'm not nearly as big a germaphobe about casinos as I was about my classroom. That place was a petrie dish swarming with cultures. In a casino, though, I drink the free soda (Diet Pepsi, unfortunately), which means a trip to the bathroom before leaving each one, which means handwashing. My hands get really dry by the second day, so I try to moisturize every time we get in the car.

They turned down my lotion most times. That's okay! More for me! They're just the complimentary tubes that we get at the hotels for free. I also offered them a some Salt and Pepper Peanuts. Wish I'd taken a picture. It was just a bag of regular peanuts, with salt and pepper. See? It's not rocket science. I didn't have to read the ingredients. Sis and Ex-Mayor both had some peanuts, and Farmer H, too. Then I offered them a piece of cinnamon candy. I had a bag of them left from two Oklahoma trips ago. That darn cinnamon candy burned my tongue! I've had to be very cautious with it. Which means not eating six pieces while riding in the car.

Ex-Mayor had a piece. "Ooh! This is hot!"

"Don't I know it! I can't eat it. My tongue will peel off."

Sis was digging in her purse. She was right behind me, so I didn't see her, but I know the sound of purse-digging. "Here. I have some that I buy for Ex-Mayor. It's not brand-name, like your Brach's. In fact, its name is just Cinnamon Discs. I think they're pretty mild."

I tried one, and it was still kind of spicy. Set my tongue to tingling. Of course our next stop was High Winds Casino, where they have FREE hot chocolate on their self-service beverage bar. I got a cup of it, and even though I waited and waited for it to cool, and blew on it, and took tiny sips to judge the temperature... I still burned my tongue. In fact, my tongue stayed burned through the next evening's TWO cups of hot chocolate, and the following morning's breakfast of spicy sausage patties, and pretty much for a whole darn week after we got home!

Monday night, I had the misfortune of stubbing my toe on the wooden frame around the hotel bed. I don't know why they do that! People walk up to the bed, and expect there to be space under it for their toes. It's not like I'm planning on sleeping on top of a wooden platform. But apparently, I am. I heard Farmer H stub his own stubby toes through the night, but I prefer not to think about his FEET.

The Downstream Casino hotel is nice, with a beautifully tiled walk-in shower. Always clean. Not to mention FREE with our comps. But the beds are not comfortable. I think it's because first of all, that wooden frame is hard on the toes. And the bed is TOO HIGH. I doubt my favorite gambling aunt could even get up in there without a step-stool. The pillows are SO uncomfortable. They are like air. you lay your head on them, and they deflate. Like cotton candy is inside. Even using three pillows, I could not make my neck comfortable. AND the sheets cling to me. Every time I turn over, I get wrapped up like a burrito. It doesn't help that there is such static electricity that any movement during the night sets off blue sparks! It's kind of intriguing the first fifty times you see it. After that, not so much.

On Monday, while driving around in A-Cad, I'd heard Sis sniffle a couple times. I figured there was something in the air. I had a box of Puffs Plus Lotion in the back, and a little wastebasket. So I didn't think much of it. Until Tuesday, when I heard Sis sniffle a LOT. And sneeze several times. And blow her nose on the Puffs.

"Are you sick?"

"I don't think so. I don't feel bad. It's just mainly annoying. I don't think I have a fever. On Friday, when we babysat Babe, she was really sick. Hot with a fever. I held her on my lap. I was hoping I didn't get it..."

REEEE! Danger, danger! Sis had been riding behind me, breathing her air in my direction for two days! Of course you know what happened. On the (silent) trip home on Wednesday, I had to cough and clear my throat every couple of minutes. I didn't feel bad. But I HAD felt a little out-of-breath walking into the rest stop. And that morning, I'd felt kind of odd during my last-minute bonus. The more I thought about it, the more I was pretty sure that I was coming down with something.

Thursday morning, I sent Sis a text: "I'm sick as a dog! I figure I'll get over it about three days after you do."

"Oh, no! Ex-Mayor is not sick, and I'm with him all the time. Is it nose and cough? I haven't had a fever if you are blaming it on me. Now I feel bad, but didn't think I was contagious and I have not felt bad."

"It started in my lungs yesterday, wheezy and clearing my throat. Bad cough. I don't know why you feel bad, just because I breathed your air. It's not like either of us could stop breathing."

Anyhoo... Farmer H got me some Chinese Hot & Sour Soup on Thursday night, and I felt a little better. Then on Sunday night, it moved into my head! Stuffy. Hot and cold. Headache. No smell, no taste. Eyes watery and sensitive to light. Terrible, until Wednesday, when I seemed to be cured, except for an occasion leftover cough.

Poor Sis, though, got her cough on Tuesday, and felt really bad. She might need a trip to the doctor. She should have been over it before me.

CasinoPaloozing, like a scary roller coaster, needs a health warning.