Casinos are the new high schools

Casino gambling is about more than casino gambling. It's the closest thing to high school short of driving America's roads where any ploppy can get a license. In a casino you rub shoulders with every type of human imaginable, some of whose shoulders you wished they kept to themselves.

You can go from nice, friendly, clean, presentable, pleasant and successful folks down to the dissipated, disgusting, obnoxious, whiny, drunk, slurring, stupid, loud, smelly and disheveled folks.

There are peasants and paupers, kings and queens walking the floors and aisles, hallways and restaurants of almost any casino.

Yes, just like high school, where all manner of kids are dumped together to more or less fend for themselves, casinos essentially invite the public in and the public is, unfortunately, the public. As anyone whose job it is to deal with large swaths of the public will attest, "Many of them are idiots."

Think about that other high school analogy, namely, driving on the roads. It's rare that you hear someone scream out the window, "You are a good driver; I commend you." No, what you hear on the public roads is usually, "You are an idiot!"

High school is dominated by dopes. Indeed, there are more kids fighting to be the stupidest kid in school than are fighting to be the smartest, and there are only a handful of students who have a shot at being the valedictorian. In fact, when I was a teacher I recommended to the school that we set up a new award called the Dumb-Dick-Torian for the absolutely stupidest student in the school.

For some reason this idea was frowned upon by the administrators, many of whom were former teachers who had fled the classroom like rats leaving the Titanic because they realized they couldn't handle the future drivers of America.

Now, when it comes to nice people, you don't hear too many complaints, do you? "Oh, my, my, Mrs. Jones is just too nice! She gives to charity, helps the poor, goes to church and has a smile for everyone. Isn't that disgusting?"

No, the Mrs. Joneses of the world don't elicit our scorn. But Mrs. Jones' cousin, Elmer the Drooling one, sure does. He's loud, dirty and pushes his way into your life whether you want him there or not. All his conversations are loud and in your face. He has no capacity to whisper or even talk in a normally pitched voice.

On the beach Elmer the Drooling plays loud music; in his car the thump, thump, thump of the bass can shake the foundations of a skyscraper. He smokes in nonsmoking areas; he drinks too much and is often seen and/or heard regurgitating in the alleys of life; in a restaurant he spits when he eats because he talks with stringy food loaded in a mouth that has more cavities than it does teeth. He's a poor tipper, too, and loves to degrade waitresses with what he thinks is humor.

Elmer the Drooling is the creep who jumps ahead of you in the buffet line and handles the rolls and desserts with his hands instead of using the tongs. He also analyzes pieces of these foods and puts back the ones that are too small — after bringing them up to his mucusy nose to smell them.

At the gaming tables he is loud and wants everyone to share in his misfortunes as he laments in foul language his inability to win. Or he wants the entire world to know he is a winner as he shouts out his simian challenge, "I can't lose!"

Of course, nice people try to ignore him but he figures if he can't attract attention by screaming he will attract attention by screaming LOUDER.

No experience is so refined or good that he can't ruin it.

Now, in truth, most people are nice or at the very least they are tolerable; but the Elmer the Drooling ones just dominate the landscape as hordes of ploppies dominate the high school experience.

Casino gambling is fun and most of us try to push the beastly ones away from our remembrances of casino visits from the past. Unfortunately I don't have that capacity.

I remember the casino ploppies.

I remember the Californian heart surgeon who threw over a blackjack table at the Golden Nugget because he was losing. I remember the drunken woman at the Silverton who passed out onto my lap and then slid to the floor in a heap. I remember the player who threw a towel into the dealer's face at the Maxim when he purposely dumped a drink onto the table. I remember the player who relieved himself onto the leg of a dealer at a craps table at a casino that will remain nameless.

I remember the young lady who went on a cursing spree because she thought all the games were fixed against her (duh) at Mirage. I remember the two elderly women, one with blue hair and one with that weird-looking red hair, fist fighting over a slot machine and pulling each others' somewhat thinning dyed hair out by the roots. This was at Showboat in Atlantic City

I remember the blackjack player who abused an entire table for causing him to lose because none of them played correctly at Tropicana in Atlantic City. I've seen craps players heave-ho onto the craps layouts at several casinos. "I'll take a yooooooooooo…splash!"

I am sure every casino gambler has his or her own list too. After all, the public is the public.