Gambling to Register

Like most great competitions, I had to get past the first major hurdle… registering. After standing in a moderately long line for about twenty minutes, Rollnaldo and I finally made it to a plastic folding table that had a piece of paper taped to it that read, ‘Scratcher Competition Registration’.

“Are you here to register for the contest?” We were greeted by a female two of hearts card person.

“No, we're here to talk about the weather.” Rollnaldo sarcastically responded, still bitter about his ticket.

Admittedly, that was kind of a stupid question that she asked, but this card was only doing her job.

“Sorry about him. He's in a bit of a mood.” I brushed off Rollnaldo's rudeness. “Yes, I would like to register for this event?”

She slid a piece of paper with very small text on it in front of me. “Just sign this waiver that says the city of Scratchville is not liable for any injuries you may sustain while competing.”

“Injuries… how could someone get injured from scratching-?”

My question answered itself as I was suddenly shoved aside by a guy dressed in a full suit of medieval plated armor. He arrogantly dropped his sheathed great sword down onto the table, as his voice echoed through his helmet that covered his entire head.

“Hey pip head, who do you think you are!?” Rollnaldo confronted him.

The knight guy, who shoved me was probably around 6’ 6”, looked down at Rollnaldo who only came halfway up his shin. Without speaking he just breathed heavily as he stared at us.

Rollnaldo laughed. “Lucky here is going to wipe the floor with you and everyone else in this competition!”

The knight remained silent, just menacingly staring at us.

A new voice suddenly chimed into our dispute. “There’s no point in arguing since the winner of this competition will be me once again.”

Rollnaldo turned to see who was speaking. “Who the pip are you?”

A man who was wearing a cloak made from stitched together scratcher tickets brushed back his long flowing blonde hair. “It is I, Scotty the Scratcher, five time reigning champ of the annual scratcher competition.”

“Never heard of you.” rollnaldo responded not sounding impressed.

“You must live under a rock then, dice man because I’m actually a pretty big deal.” Scotty pulled something out from his pocket. “I’ve been featured dozens of times on the cover of Rolling Chips magazine. Last year I was voted the Kasino Kingdom’s sexiest man.”

Rollnaldo Laughed. “Yeah right, if anyone is the sexiest man in the Kasino Kingdom it's me.”

“Yoooooou.” The knight ominously groaned, as he lifted his massive sword in one hand and pointed it at Scotty.

Scotty gave an arrogant Snicker. “Seems this gentleman over here has heard of me. You, knight man, what’s your name?”

The knight let out a loud moan. “Baaaaah.”

“Hm, Baaaaah. I don’t particularly like the sound of that, so I’m just going to call you Sir Scatchalot.” Scotty mockingly nicknames the knight.

There was a tense stare down between the two men, which I used as an opportunity back my way out of their verbal cross fire.

“Is everyone participating in this contest a complete weirdo?” I muttered to Rollnaldo.

He pointed back at the table. “I don’t care who these guys are. Just sign that form. We still need to get you prepared to compete.”

I let out a breath as I reluctantly signed the waiver. “Let's hope for your sake I can actually pull this off.”

🎰🎰🎰

I stared up at the pile of trash bags that Rollnaldo had led me to. “Why are we standing in front of a pile of garbage?”

“We need to do a little ‘treasure hunting’. He made quotation marks with his fingers. “I looked into the rules and apparently you can bring any one object you want to help you scratch the tickets.”

“Did you manage to figure out what this contest entails?” Even after registering for the event, I was still lost as to what was going on.

He held up a brochure in his hand. “Yeah I think I got the gist. So essentially, there is a massive pile of tickets and in that pile, there is a single winning scratcher. All the participating gamblords will simultaneously be competing against each other to scratch their way through the tickets until one person manages to find the winning scratcher.”

“Alright, but why do I have to dig through the trash when I could just use a coin?” I wondered.

“That would be great, but in case you haven't noticed, we don't have any coins.” He pointed back toward the pile. “Now quit your whining and get searching, princess.”

I let out a sigh as I got down on my hands and knees. “What exactly should I be looking for?”

“I don't know, something that would be good for scraping.”

I ripped open the first bag, as rancid smelling garbage poured out from it.

It's a good thing I've had my shots.

Digging through the trash, I set aside a few objects of interest. “Will any of these work?”

Rollnaldo inspected them. “Let's see, a rusty nail, a cracked plastic dust pan, and a wooden spoon… keep looking, I think we can do better.”

I tore open another bag and continued searching. After once again digging through some more garbage, I set out more items.

“A half of a hair comb, a chewed up marker cap, and a tupperware lid.” He shook his head and pointed back at the pile to continue searching.

“You got a merch cart full of stuff. Isn't there something in there I could use?”

“Not unless you want me to break your legs.” He defensively asserted.

I don’t see you helping.

I reached into my pocket, as something suddenly dawned on me. “What about that gold spray painted key I got back in Dice Town?”

He inspected the key in my hand, but immediately shook his head. “Too small. This is a race. We need something bigger and more efficient.”

I opened the lid off of a rusty metal trash can where I was met by an object that seemed to have been placed there by divine intervention. Sitting just on top of a pile of dirty diapers, was the scoop part of a snow shovel that's handle had been snapped off. Ignoring the putrid smell of the diapers, I fished it out.

Rollnaldo nodded his head in approval. “That's perfect! Now that we got you a scraping object, it's time to get some last second training in.”

“There's only three hours until the competition. What training can I get done in that timeframe?”

“Easy, you just need to familiarize yourself with your new scraping tool. We'll just find a dirty sidewalk or something and you can practice by scraping dirt off of it.”

“I guess that makes sense.” I responded.

Now equipped with my new trusty snow shovel scoop that came from a trash can full of baby crap, Rollnaldo coached me for the next three hours as I practiced my scraping technique.

A week ago if somebody told me that I'd be participating in a competition revolving around scratcher tickets and a talking dice was going to be my coach, I would have said you were insane… but here I was.