The Bahamian Slot Machine Story
1993
Written 08/26/2016 Re-written 2/ 2019
Howard Yasgar
It was 1993 and my wife and I decided it was time to take a vacation.
Because we lived in Miami, we knew that it was just a hop skip and a jump to fly to Paradise Island, Nassau, in the Bahamas, we had done it several times before.
For us to get to Nassau was only a three quarters of an hour flight out of Miami.
You took off from Miami International Airport, and the next thing you knew, you were landing in Nassau.
Once we were in Nassau we would take a taxi and go over a toll bridge to Paradise Island.
On Paradise Island, there were several good hotels.
There was the Paradise Island Hotel and Casino, there was the Britannia Hotel, and the brand new Grand Hotel.
We liked staying on paradise island because of the casino there, and Katherine and I are 21 players.
But we also liked it because there was a toll bridge to get to Paradise Island, and underneath the bridge was where the conch fishermen set up shop.
We always made sure that at some time during our stay we would go under the toll bridge and have a conch salad.
The fishermen would take a live conch they had hanging over the side of their boat, remove the conch from his shell, and then chop up the edible meat into quarter inch pieces Then they cut up onion, green peppers and whatever other vegetable they had including a couple of hot scotch bonnet pepper, all of it would go in a plastic bread bag, and shook up with lots of lime juice, boy was that salad good as we sat on the concrete sea wall and ate it out of the plastic bag.
For quite a few years we always stayed at the Paradise Island Hotel and Casino, that was until they built the new Grand hotel and then we started staying there.
The routine with the Grand Hotel was always the same, they used local people to administrate the front counter.
My wife Katherine would call them from Miami and make reservations and get a confirmation number.
Then when we arrived at the hotel, the Bahamian desk clerk would say they had no record of our reservation, and they had no rooms available.
They did this every single time, so when we arrived at the hotel, I would sit an a lobby chair and relax as my wife would do battle with the desk clerk.
Once it got very serious and the hotel manager ended giving us a free supper on the house.
This year, when we decided to go to Nassau, I looked over my wardrobe only to find that I had outgrown my dress pants and my sport jacket.
So my wife Katherine dragged me to the mall to get some new clothes.
As I looked for a sport jacket, I saw that one store had had a large stock of beige ultra suede jackets.
I had never owned a Ultra Suede jacket before, so I had to try one on.
The jacket was nice and, and it fit me perfectly, but the price of the jacket was much higher than I had expected to spend. The jacket was $285.00 and that was a pricy sum in 1993.
I don’t think I ever spent more than $100.00 for a jacket in my life.
As I started to take the Suede jacket off, my wife gave me that look, and I knew what that meant, so I bought the Ultra Suede jacket.
By the time we left the shopping mall, I had an entirely new wardrobe including the jacket.
Now once my wife and I had our room at the grand hotel, we would just walk next door to the Casino,
We are both low stakes 21 card players and we can spend hours sitting at a card table.
When we get tired of playing, we usually walk around the casino, and sometimes we play a few of the slot machines.
On this particular day, it was about 10 in the evening and the casino was loaded with people, there were no seats available, so Katherine and I, were casually walking around the casino waiting for a couple of seats to become available.
As we walked around, we both started playing the 25 cent slot machines.
While playing the slot machines, I always try to keep my eye on Katherine so I can find her.
That evening, I saw she was playing a slot machine and the red and white lights on the top of the machine were blinking, and a bell was ringing.
I walked over, and saw that the tray in the slot machine was absolutely filled with quarters.
Katherine said, “This is a really good slot machine, I can’t lose”.
It appeared that every time Katherine put in 3 quarters, and she pulled the handle, more quarters poured into the tray.
I think that was why the slot machines bells were ringing, and it’s lights were flashing.
We wondered, could just be good luck or was the machine broken.
As she kept playing, soon the quarters were just about overflow the machines tray.
I looked around for cups to put the quarters in but there weren’t any near us, so I started scooping up quarters out and putting them in my jacket pockets.
As fast as I scooped the quarters out, Katherine kept playing, and every time she pulled the lever, more quarters came out.
It wasn’t long before I had no more room to put any more quarters in my pockets.
Just then, the Bahamian slot machine floor boss must have see the slot machines lights blinking, and he walked over to us.
He looked at the tray, it was again full of quarters.
Then he looked at Katherine’s innocent face.
He politely said, “Madam, I believe this machine is out of order”.
The fellow put his key in the machine to shut off the blinking lights, and then he reached into the coin tray,
pushing a small handful of the quarters towards Katherine, but then he then pushed 80% of the quarters away from her, obviously intending to keep them for the casino.
I watched as Katherine, who had now found several big paper cups, bent over and scooped his big pile of coins into the cups, leaving him with only a hand full of quarters.
I could see he was kind of shocked, but he never said a word, as we walked to the cashier cage to turn in our quarters.
I emptied out all the quarters that were in the pockets of my new ultra suede jacket, I had close to $300.00.
It was then that we noticed that the pockets in the ultra suede jacket were stretched about one inch lower than they should have been.
The weight of the quarters had stretched out the suede jacket pockets, and completely ruined my jacket.
Once we were back in Miami, I went to a tailor, and he tried every trick to fix the pockets, and that cost me another $100.00, and now the jacket was not only had stretched pockets but it was crooked as well.
That new $285.00 ultra suede jacket went right into the trash.
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