June 1, 2009

As many of you know, I play poker at the Casino in Brantford. I've been going there for almost 5 years now. About four years ago, this crazy story happened.

We were playing $5/$10 limit, and my friend Chris and I were at the same table. It's amazing how much I remember from this night. There was a girl named Amanda sitting beside me and we were chatting a fair bit for most of the night. A few seats over, there was a guy who looked exactly like Adam Rodriguez...so much so, that another guy from our table kept saying, "Hey, CSI Miami, It's on you!"

We had a pretty good table, and we were playing late into the night. It was after midnight, and Lawrence was our dealer. Now Lawrence is a tad snarky and sarcastic, but not really to the point that it was offensive or annoying...at least not to me. However, after a few bad beats, or during a losing session, it definitely wasn't amusing to have him as your dealer.

I was sitting in seat 5, which is important to know for this story. For those of you who don't know where that would be, take a look at the picture below. See the guy in the striped shirt with his baseball cap on backwards? That's where I was sitting.

So, it's late, and I'm tired, so I ordered a coffee. My coffee comes, and I have just folded my cards on that particular hand, and I take a drink of my coffee. All of a sudden...out of nowhere...I sneeze.

And I don't mean a tiny little sneeze either. I mean a near-explosion. With a mouthful of coffee.

All I see is brown covering the inside of my glasses, and when I recover enough to take them off, I look at Lawrence, and he's completely covered in coffee, and wiping his face with his hand.

A quick survey of the room tells me that it's come to a complete standstill and everyone is getting up to come over and see what's happened. I look over at my friend Chris in Seat 9, who is still IN THE HAND, and he's looking at me with his hands outstretched as if to say, "What the F*ck?" I look down at the table, and see that all the chips in the pot are soaked, and I've covered the flop in coffee as well. (The flop was J-6-6 by the way, not sure how I always remember that) I've even propelled the coffee so far as to get some on the BACK of the player at the next table, which is behind Lawrence. From what Chris told me afterwards, it was essentially a direct hit on Lawrence's face, with some side propulsion to the next table and some residual bounceback onto the chips and cards.

Now Kathy, who is one of the pit managers in the room that night, comes over and asks what happened, and I stammer, "I....sneezed." And she gets in my face and almost yells, "What do you mean you sneezed!?" Now, I didn't really think I was being that cryptic about what happened, but I felt like right now wasn't the best time to be sarcastic, so I just repeated myself. She was NOT impressed. We laugh about it now, but it was a side of her I hadn't seen before, nor do I want to see again.

So Kathy decides that the hand has to be completed, and then they'll have to close the table down and figure out what to do. So the hand finished, and Chris actually wins it, and immediately asks, "Do I have to take THOSE chips?" Yes he does, and they table gets closed down for about 20 minutes while I apologize profusely to Lawrence, Kathy, and all of the other players at the table.

They end up having to wet the table down to clean it, then use a hairdryer to dry the wet spot, and it was Lawrence that had to sit there, still with my coffee-spit soaked into his clothes, and hold the hairdryer while it dried. We ended up going back about 20 minutes later, and it was so awkward on that first hand...there was total silence. All of a sudden, one of the guys says "Hey, why does it smell like coffee?", and it broke the ice, we all laughed and continued on.

Needless to say, it was not my finest hour. I can't help but wonder what the surveillance video looks like from above...it must be spectacular.

Although I have to say, the funniest part of the whole night, was just before we left. I had already cashed out, and we were waiting on Chris. I went out to the casino floor to wait with our other friend Phil, who was playing Three Card Poker. I walk up to him at the table, and when he sees me, he says to the dealer, "Hey, tell him what you just told me." So the dealer says "Some guy in the poker room tonight sneezed coffee and nailed Lawrence right in the face." I said "How do you you know?" and he says, "It's all anyone is talking about in the break room. Apparently it was awesome."