It happened like this. I was sitting in my car near Café Joe’s waiting for my wife who was in the nearby pharmacy. I had my laptop open and was connected to the spillover from Café Joe’s WiFi system. I was gambling online, one of my favorite “Waiting-for-my-wife” activities.

I was playing in a game of Texas Hold’em with a bunch of guys, concentrating like mad and trying to pick out the bluffers from the players, not an easy thing to do when you are playing online and you can’t see the players’ body language. Suddenly there’s a loud knock on the window. I wind it down and there’s this cop standing there barking at me. “Move on, please!”. I say, “Just a sec while I finish this hand,” and he says, “Move on!”

I ignore him and place my bet. I’m holding a pair of jacks and feeling pretty confident. The cop yells “Move now!” and reaches for his night-stick. I watch the flop coming down and see another jack giving me three of a kind, often an unbeatable hand. I raise my bet.

The cop leans over, pulls my door open, and pulls me and my laptop out of the car. Next thing I am in the back of his blue and white on the way to the jailhouse. Inside, I am flung into a cell and the door clangs closed. I bang on the door and when a young cop finally comes, I ask him if I can have my laptop. I tell him I am a writer and that the cops are interfering with my right to earn a living. After half an hour he comes back with the laptop and moves me to another cell where I will get wireless reception from the nearby front office. I thank him profusely and before the door slams shut I am back in the online casino searching for my game of Texas Hold’em. The game is still going on and I’m sure the guys at the table were pleased to see me back in the game.

Posted on: May 26, 2009

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