Betting Man

For the last few months, Sybil has been hounding me to visit. Since there was no good way to spin a trip to the 25 Taylor Street pain cave, I decided the best approach would be to piggy back a vacation my brother planned back east to Sag Harbor. Something about him renting a house, having a car service pick up Sybil, blah, blah, blah. In theory it sounded like a great way to visit without really visiting.  There would be enough distractions and people that I could possibly avoid talking to Sybil the entire time.  My daughter could play with my brother's daughter and I more importantly could hide while other people dealt with Sybil requesting her tomato be sliced extra thin.  "No, that isn't thin enough. Do it again."

When I told Sybil the glorious plan she immediately said no.  She needed to see me and my brother and our collective children separately. I would like to say this had to do with her being lonely and wanting to spread out people visiting, but I think it had more to do with her driving home that my brother and I should be close but not that close. I responded by saying well I guess I'm not coming then because that's the only free time I have.

SO THEN DON'T COME!

That was the end of it until I realized I had two days off Memorial Day weekend. Hmmmm, four days off.  That's nice. What should I do? Let me think about that for a bit. Mid-day Tuesday before the weekend in question I called Sybil and told her about my four days off and if I only knew sooner I would have come for a visit.  If I had stopped there I would have been free, but I added the following, "Well, I know it's short notice but if you want to pay for the tickets, I will come visit."

I thought the empty gesture was the equivalent of me standing in an OTB with the sports almanac from Back to the Future in one hand and a dozen tickets for American Pharoah in the other. I thought I had a sure thing!

Sybil: How much are the tickets?
Barry: Let me look... $2600 plus tax on United.
Sybil: Call me in a bit and I will give you a credit card.
Barry (quietly): okay

I sat there for a moment wondering if she was serious. Would she really spend the money? A few minutes later I got a confirmation email from United. She booked the trip for me.

I truly gambled and lost.

More on the trip later.

Upon further research I see the almanac only goes up to 2000.  Clearly I can't gamble for shit.