Date: 6/28/98
When last I left you, Treasa and I were finally on our way to Monaco, a tiny fairytale country of about 5000 inhabits, a square mile in size, ruled by a prince. Monaco is completely surrounded by France, and according to my sources, the political system works as follows: Every law passed by France is reworded and sent to the Prince of Monaco. If he likes it, he passes it. If not, he doesn't. Thats it.
We succesfully arrived in Monaco at around 10AM Monday morning, having gotten only a few snatches of sleep the previous evening. We quickly found a hotel room and crashed. Many hours later, at 9PM or so, we arose to survey the land. Planning to check out Monte Carlo's famous Casino, we dressed up and brought our passports (the gambling age being 21, which both of us are, but neither of us look. Especially me.) We first stopped by a pizza place, where I had plenty to eat, but Treasa unfortunately did not. She hadn't decided on an order by the time the waitress came up to us, and she asked me to just pick something, so I named a random pizza. Unfortunately, it turned out to have (blech) anchovies, those nasty nasty things, which both of us consider horrid. Treasa ate around them, but only managed to consume about half her meal.
The most entertaining portion of the meal was talking to an American family next to us. The mother was Italian, the father American, and the daughter (perhaps 10 years old), who attends the International School in (?Atlanta?), was a born snob, delighted to tell us what "fromage" and "legumes" were. The Italian mother had rather an anti-american bias, her european spirit having been neither quashed nor converted in her years of Yankee imprisonment - she was surprised at both my knowledge of mythology (as evinced by a comment on the original gourmet, Crete's Minotaur) and my selflessness and devotion to family, as shown by the fact that I babysat for my parents without even charging money! We chatted a little before they took off, hopefully with a slightly increased opinion of the culture level of american college students.
Next, we went to the casino area. It was beautiful, pretty buildings and lights and wonderful gardens with stupid looking statues. The gardens were deserted, but it all felt very safe - since the Casino provides much of the countries income, crime on a smaller scale than gambling seems to be tolerated not at all. It was here that Treasa realized that the sacred game of Punchbuggy is completely unsuited to these foreign climes. For the uninitiated, the game of Punchbuggy is simple, and works as follows. Whenever someone spots a VW bug, they can say "punchbuggy", and punch one of their friends in the arm. No retaliation (other than perhaps the beginnings of a simmering hatred) is permitted, outside the context of the game. If you want revenge, you better spot the next Volkswagon first. Treasa suggested that we play PunchFerrari, and that game gave us great amusement.
Eventually, we wandered towards the American room of the Casino, succesfully wielding our passports to gain entrance. After quickly losing 100 Francs to the slot machines, as a libation to the deities, we turned to the game I love - roulette. Thanks to my degree in Metamathematics from Harvard Med, and the great Numerology Theory class I had from professor Ben Arthurman, I did wonderfully, as usual. Betting on the 0 and 00 ("They are what make the odds good for the house, they must be able to make odds good for you!"), my favorite numbers (18 & 21), powers of two (they had strong numerological significance), and my famous "numbers that are close to me and easy to reach because my arms are short" theory, I was down to one last bet of 5 25-Franc chips, on which the number 32 hit. Another 15 minutes later, on the last round for the table and my last round of the night, 32 hit again, and Treasa and I happily strode home, 700 Francs (more than $100) richer.
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