My friend Stephen Ploppy, in a moment of sheer and utter grief, wrote a letter to the goddess of craps, Rhamnousia, because she had betrayed him in his hours of need. She was an unfaithful mistress who enjoyed teasing . . .well, let him tell you about it.
Dear Rhamnousia:
I am heartbroken by your behavior towards me. I thought I had you figured out. I thought you and I would be great friends and perhaps, over time, true lovers, and you would allow me to explore your richest reaches. How could you do this to me? You left me flat broke, empty of money and devoid of my overweening pride.
Once I did have great pride, I admit that. Frankly, I was bloated with it. I created many unique ways of trying to play you, oh, beautiful one, but each and every attempt ultimately ended in abysmal failure and disgrace. I say you led me on with your false charms only to leave me weeping tears of distress as I crashed heavily into the ground.
Your colorful, enticing, exciting, dramatic, dreamy, high-paying bets in the center of your loveliness — the Hard 4, 6, 8, and 10 — brought shivers to my body as I called out, "Give me all the Hardways for $25 each!"; the 2, 3, 11 and 12 made me hard with anticipation, "Give me a yo-eleven! Give me boxcars! Snake eyes boys! Put a three up for good measure!"
I even threw money out on Big Red because I thought red would be the color of your passion towards me, your acolyte.
Oh, yes, I bought into the ploppiness of the "see a horn, bet a horn" lunatics who sell their pornographic version of how to seduce you everywhere they can to unsuspecting players. But I never thought you would realize how arrogant I was being by thinking such a seductive technique could actually work in your real world game. I admit I was living in a fantasy world of misplaced hope. You could not be seduced by such idiocy!
Crazy and blinded and imagining that your possible riches could belong exclusively to me, I kept seeing big wins on those high-paying bets but I never realized you were using these enticements to strip me of my good mood and my money. I never thought you would take such high percentages out of my wins because I thought you truly loved me to play you. I never thought you were a woman who enjoyed taking a man's money and leaving him in an empty state of being and bankroll.
Oh, you temptress of chance. At times you allowed those big bets to pay off and I thought I was about to strip you of your remarkable power, and make love to your rewards as no man had ever done before me; and then you caved me in with ugly loss upon horrible loss upon disastrous loss. How could you do such things to me, who loved you, and played you with all the excitement in my soul? Couldn't you feel me tingling when I approached you?
Still, beaten down and depressed, I couldn't learn my lesson. I started to double my efforts to win your treasures, lavishing more and more money on you in the expectation that you would finally come through for me.
You know what you did to me, don't you? You took even more of my money and with it my pride, leaving me a withered husk of disappointed humanity. I was a man without my monetary manhood.
My friends have told me to leave you. They tell me to drop you and to forget all those charms you use as your centerpiece. They say I should only court you in the most ephemeral ways, making bets you really don't enjoy because you don't get the same kick out of them.
Can I do this? Can I pass up your crazy hype and go for small moments of your friendship as opposed to what I though would be your outpouring of love?
Where can I turn to now?
In sorrow and despair,
Stephen Ploppy
Rhamnousia is an unyielding goddess and she enjoys putting those who desire her untold and long-lasting riches in their place — crushed under her golden sandals where they squirm in agony.
She has seduced many craps players, not just Stephen Ploppy, and she will seduce still hundreds of thousands more. She is alluring that way; alluring and dangerous.
