My So-Called Life Lessons: A Quarter For My Troubles

Mike and I took our extra weekend day to get in some Wisconsin skiing. We went to Cascade Mountain, which is where Mike and I skied the day after Christmas. The mountain was just as good - all the runs were open and the sun never came out and rendered us blind. However, as good as the skiing was I think I'll remember the weekend more for this thing.

The night before we went skiing, Mike and I, and couple friends of ours had hotel rooms by the mountain and empty stomachs. We set off for the booming mecca of downtown Portage in search of nourishment. We walked into three bars before we found one that served food and had TVs. These were our requirements. The bar we settled into was a pretty typical Portage watering hole. It was wood paneled and crawling with regulars, some who looked like extras from a ZZ Top video. But it did have games. Lot and lots of games. We played darts (the boys won - boo!) and some pinball. Those paled in comparison however to the quarter game (pictured above).

You see the quarters in that machine? I think Nicole and I added about half of them that night. We tried it, first putting the spare change we had in our wallets into the machine. Unfortunately that's what got us hooked. The sound of the quarters dropping was intoxicating. You see, there were two slots for quarters and two little wheels that would spin the quarters we dropped. Once the quarter dropped we hoped it would push enough quarters from the first level (which also had a $10, $20 and $50 dollar bill) that it would knock quarters from the second level down to us. We got good enough at timing the wheel spins that we started getting some quarters coming back to us. I couldn't tell you though how many we won.

Like these six quarters that we won (probably after feeding 15 into the game). They were immediately put back into the game to try and garner us more winnings. That is what we did with all our winnings. Put them back into the game.

The next morning as we were reliving our night in the Wisconsin townie bar, Nicole and I tried to figure out how much money we spent. We stopped counting after we realized we may have put $30 into it. OK, actually $40. It's not all our fault though. Our men at one point brought us a $10 roll of quarters. And then they brought another. Nicole and I sis walk away at one point. Just when we thought we had successfully slipped from its grip, she spotted a quarter on the ground. We of course had to play it. And as I did, I jammed up one of the slots. We didn't even stop then. There was still one working slot. I think we only finally quit because we couldn't find any more quarters in our purses and our men, sensing, our crippling addiction stopped bringing us quarter rolls. We were cut off. And it was a good thing.

Um but skiing... skiing was fun. I'm glad we went.