I’d be willing to bet you, gentle reader,
that you can’t take a single page of this publication and fold it in
half eight times. Want to bet? The only reason that I know you can’t do
it is because I lost a sizable bet trying.
I
gave up gambling decades ago after a former friend of mine told me his
unbeatable system for playing blackjack. I started out with a five
dollar bet as instructed. Every time I won I pulled the initial five
dollars back. If I lost I had to double up. If I lost again I had to
double that bet. My friend said that I could not lose money because
eventually I had to win and then I would get my original five dollars
back.
On my last trip to Reno I tried
the system. As usual, I was having a string of bad luck and after losing
eight hands in a row my next bet had to be $1,280 dollars just to get
my original five dollars back. It was then the dealer told me about the
one thousand dollar table limit. But it didn’t matter because I had no
money left anyway. So much for my friend’s “can’t miss” system. We
haven’t spoken in years.
Numbers
and figurin’ never were my best subjects. A clear illustration occurred
when I had to get my horse, Gentleman, shod. Monty, my regular shoer
was down with a bad back so I called up a farrier I found in the phone
book. I should have known I made a mistake when I was his only
appointment that day and he arrived in a shiny new rig without the
slightest trace of a hunch back.
“How much will you charge to shoe my horse Gentleman?” I inquired.
“That will he $150,” he replied without a trace of guilt.
“Well, you can just load up and go back to where you came from.”
“Now
wait a minute,” the replied. “If you won’t pay me a $150 how about if I
just charge you one penny for the first nail and double it for every
nail after that?”
This guy must have
thought I just fell off a turnip truck or had an I.Q. equal to room
temperature. “Mister, you got yourself a deal.”
The
horseshoer slid underneath Gentleman and hammered in the first nail and
just as the farrier promised the second nail was only two cents, the
third one four and the fourth nail was only eight cents. Even after he
added up all eight nails I got one whole hoof shod for $1.28.
I
was really liking this deal but was feeling kind of guilty for ripping
off the farrier. But by the time he’d finished Gentleman’s second hoof I
was getting an uneasy feeling in my wallet. After doubling the price
for each of the nails in the second shoe I was owing the farrier $662.40
and even Gentleman was looking at me like I was an idiot.
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