This story needs a little background setting for you to get the whole picture. My first time in a casino was in Aruba on our honeymoon. I was a bit uncomfortable to say the least. The room was filled with hundreds of people who actually seemed to know what they were doing as if there was some secret casino society of do's and don'ts that separated the high-rollers from the amatures. I of course, being the amature. Hyun-Ju had told me stories of former aquaintences and some of the "good times" and "bad times" that had been had in similar establishments. I was being careful to watch what was going on to see if there was some etiquite to this whole activity. Needless to say I was lost in the bright lights and sounds of shrieking one-armed bandits and sirens of machines announcing jackpots to some lucky casino patron.

I was going through the motions taking her lead. We were playing quarter slots jumping from machine to machine looking for payouts. Ten bucks here, twenty dollars there, we were having fun watching our deep cup of coins become more shallow. Hyun-Ju had settled in a nice little machine near the foyer where we had a clear view of the different games being played. We had spent about eighty dollars so far and I was dropping more and more quarters into the machine when all of a sudden my machine exploded into a chorus of sirens and bells. I thought at first I had broken it or put in a bad coin. All I could imagine that security would be there soon to escort me from the premise for vandalism. When I turned to Hyun-Ju to see what was going on her expression was pure disbelief. I had just won five hundred dollars playing slots and had no idea what to do. Hyun-Ju told me to relax and that someone would be there soon to turn off the sirens and assist me to the cashier booth.

Well, so much for beginners luck. The next time into the casino we learned another valuable lesson. Leave while you're ahead. We had lost a couple hundred the next year playing the slots. Such is life. Here it was three years later and we were back in the casino. A little wiser and alot more catious. This time we strecthed our forty dollars out over a couple hours playing nickel slots until our fingers were black from the coins. The first twenty lasted about an hour and a half and the second twenty dollars about fifteen minutes. I was winning as I went and Hyun-Ju was losing. Slowly, she would walk up to me with that cute little pout and scooping my stash with a smile and say "Just gimme ten more dollars".