I started the day by driving into the Shell station to fill up my tank. At the next row of pumps, I could hear someone yelling from inside the cab of a U-Haul truck. "You fucked it up! Get your head out of your ass."
I decided to mind my own business, but a heavy set Chicano emerged from the driver's side door, looked at me and said, "Isn't that car a little young for you."
"It would be if I'd ever grown up."
"Did you add those aluminum wheels?" he asked.
"Nope, they're stock on the Nismo race car."
"What you got under the hood?"
"It's a two point five liter V-tec with forced air and a modified exhaust – about a hundred and seventy horsepower."
That seemed to perk his interest. "How fast that thing go?"
"It redlines at a hundred and fifty."
"You been there with it?"
"Hell no."
"Why would you buy a fine machine like that if you're not going to give it a chance to run?"
Okay, time to throw a little bullshit into the mix. "I didn't actually buy it. I won it in a poker game."
I was dressed in my dealer uniform. He believed me.
His name was Richard. He was traveling from Missouri to San Francisco to take up residence with his uncle. I guess that was his wife in the truck with him. He said that had been the victim of a hit and run while riding a motorcycle a few years ago and showed me all his scars.
We finished fueling at about the same time, gave each other a standard homeboy blessing and drove off.
The pit class subject for the day was coloring up chips (bringing in a player's cheques and returning a like amount of money in the fewest number of chips possible). Sometimes it can get a little complicated.
Jennifer is the assistant instructor. She seems to get angry with me when she thinks I've made a mistake. I never argue with her and usually thank her for her guidance.
Today I was coloring up practice chips and she thought I'd made an error. She started yelling at me from across the pit, but she hadn't seen the single green chip among the red ones on the layout. I held it up to show her that I'd done the assignment correctly. Jennifer doesn't like to be shown that she was wrong, especially after making a spectacle of herself. I'm sure that she will be looking for a payback opportunity tomorrow. I don't think she likes me.
I think some people dislike me simply because I take up space on this planet, but I know it goes deeper than that because they seem to like other people who take up an equal amount of space. Maybe I remind them of a character in a soap opera, or maybe I look like an old boyfriend who done them wrong. Hell, I don't know.
I remember my poker instructor didn't like me because every time he'd come up with a new betting strategy, I'd point out the deficiencies in the concept and calculate the odds in my head to prove the point – he could barely add and subtract with a calculator. I actually appreciated his straightforward candor on my personality defects. At least I know why he didn't like me. He was an asshole.
