Will Shoot Pool for Egg Sandwiches

Anyone who says money can’t buy happiness has never been very hungry.

Many of you know this, or are close to someone who knows this, from firsthand experience. Perhaps one can’t simply walk to the market and purchase happiness. “Say, my good man, I’d like to see your selection of smiles and goodwill this fine day!”

But you can sure as hell buy a loaf of bread and some peanut butter. And to a hungry person, that’s as close as you can get.

I mention this because there was a time, more recently than I’d like to admit, that the hungry person was me. Not so much in that I was unfortunate, but unwise. There were other things that demanded the bulk of my earnings, such as rent, utilities, gas, overdraft fees…and of course, a certain drink that starts with an “R” and hilariously rhymes with “bum.”

I’m thankful to say that those days are fading into old memory, the way a real zinger of a nightmare does when exposed to the light of day, and those thanks are largely owed to the two jobs that keep me in the money and out of trouble.

It’s also thanks in part to the fact that I’m a cheating bastard.

I was always good at pool. No master, by any means, but above average. I carry my own cue when I go to dive bars. I bitch when there’s no chalk around. It’s rare I can find someone who bests me more than half the time.

The first few games I played after discovering my power, I didn’t cheat. It may or may not be boasting to say that it wasn’t necessary. Then I played some overlarge frat boy, one of those you see strutting around in pink polo shirts, named Kyle or Kelly or something along those lines. He was an okay shot, but my lead was strong, one ball to the eight when he still had four.

I turned around to grab my drink (let the Captain take the wheel, so to speak) and saw him, out of the corner of my eye, pot one of his balls by hand.

This got my drunken blood to boiling, so I decided at that moment that turnabout was fair play. We played five more games, twenty dollars per game, and I walked home with an extra hundred dollars.

It wasn’t so hard to cheat undetected. Give the cue ball a little push sideways as it rolls to the target ball. Put the brakes on his nine a little short of the pocket. Nudge my four when it comes up just a bit shy.

After that night, I’m sorry to say that the temptation to employ my talent this way was simply too great to ignore.

I pick out similar types – loudmouth kids with more alcohol in their bloodstream than sense in their heads, and if they have a pretty little college girl nearby they’re trying to impress, so much the better. A couple hours hitting up the dive bars downtown can net me three or four hundred dollars, so long as I’m careful to play small stakes and not stay in one place too long.

I try all sorts of ways to rationalize this venture to myself. I needed the money, true. I’m simply using what God or Allah or the Flying Spaghetti Monster gave me, true. Asking me to stop would be like asking a wide receiver who was particularly fast to slow down so the defense would have a chance at catching him.

Right?