Fortune Found
2026-06-25
At trivia last night, I didn't pay for any booze or food the whole night. Once my friends had left, I decided to stick around for a quick smoke. After my smoke, I hit the ATM and got $20 so I could tip the bartenders for giving me my free soda. I went to the bartender and got a ten and two fives. I gave the bartender the ten and took my two fives to the slot machine just for shits and giggles. What was supposed to be a two-minute throwaway ended up turning into a twenty-minute ordeal; I kept hitting bonus after bonus, and my balance was shifting like the damn NASDAQ. Once I hit about $70 in winnings, I decided I was done with it and increased my bid from $1 to $3 so I could get the fuck home. Lo and behold, $150 appears out of thin air. I was considering going for the max bid of $5 and letting it go to rest, but I decided to cash out so I could tip the bartenders an extra $10 and called it a night. This is the second time I've won at slots at that bar. I've played maybe four times and won twice.
Earlier that day, I was feeling a bit down, a bit tired. I was sure I was getting depressed again and was hoping for something to not make it worse. After a nice bit of adrenaline in a throwaway slot machine game, I feel a bit odd about being in better spirits. Perhaps this is some attempt at counter-signaling, but I want to try my best to be humble about it, lest my arrogance leads me down the gambling hole. I've hit big on gambling before; back in 2020, I had a spare $1,500 put into an online casino because I wanted to be the next Phil Ivey or some shit, but I got bored of that and decided to hit the blackjack tables. About two hours and several $500 hands later, I was up to about $5,000. I withdrew my earnings, and my bank account felt nice and plump for a while. All of that, of course, went down the hole because I love being a poor loser.
Kidding, obviously. But yeah, gambling and I have a complicated history. May I never curse myself and open a Polymarket or Kalshi account! I think God's been kind to me with my gambling endeavors because I truly have no stake in playing rigged games, and He's shown me a good bit of kindness on that front to help me repent in other ways. When I was younger, I used to have a good bit of kleptomania. I never stole from people I knew personally, but I delighted in shoplifting from large stores where I felt like the whole thing was rigged. Price fixed? How about I circumvent that with a five-finger discount, Mr. Cashier? This is a tough confession to make, but at food service jobs I've worked, I used to slam credit cards. I can confess this crime with impunity because this was several years ago and, uh, statute of limitations or something.
As a bartender and bike delivery guy for Jimmy John's, most of my income was supplied by tips. However, the locations I worked at were by the University of Texas campus, and these college kids, despite most of them coming from some kind of money, had the audacity to stiff me every chance they could get. So what is a man of my means to do when I process my tips via the POS? $3 every time someone signs a blank receipt. $10 if they pissed me off. These jobs were ridiculously high volume; at the bar, I'd get hundreds of tickets; most shifts at Jimmy John's had anywhere from 20–50 orders. I would say about 40% of those would stiff me, and that over the course of my time at those jobs, I probably pocketed an extra $10,000 or so. What's crazier? No one ever caught me, because not one of those stupid kids audited their bank balance. NOT ONE.
And of course, every last cent of it was spent. Parable of the Talents all over again, amirite ladies? All of that is to say that fortune is bullshit; it can be made honestly, stolen, or happen purely through means beyond one's control. What matters more than fortune is attuning ourselves to God's will, whatever that may be. As I've grown in my faith over the last few years, I've learned to trust certain instincts with sharper clarity because I know that I can feel the will of God in them. What I used to ascribe to morality or some weird sense of predetermination, I now ascribe to the everlasting love and grace of Christ. Even when I'm wrong, and especially when I don't listen, there will always be a hand extended out to me when I'm feeling lost.
Worth every penny.
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