I made the trip to Barcelona to play in the WPT Spanish Championship. This trip was a big mistake in so many ways, but for this particular post, I’m going to reveal what a true dumbass I really am.
My friend John lives in Barcelona and has for several years. He takes Julie and I down to this famous street called the Ramblas…don’t know if that’s the right spelling, and I don’t give a shit either. He looks at Julie’s wedding ring and suggests she not wear it and says that the only real crime in Barcelona is pick pocketers, so watch your purse and your wallet. I’m guarding my wallet like a pit bull and watching Julie’s purse like a trained assassin.
We are walking down the street and we see statue people. They dress up in unusual costumes and people pay them for this. We stumble onto this group of people in a circle making a lot of noise. I always like to see what’s going on so Julie, John and I squeeze in. The guy has 3 tops of match boxes which he rotates and scrambles while hiding a pea underneath one of them… in essence a shell game. The strange thing about this shell game is that people are winning at it and the pea is actually easy to spot in many cases. Enter dumbass.
Julie and I both see the pea under the same match box so we decide to bet. They want us to bet 100 Euros. OK, it’s for sure…NOT. We were wrong. How could that be? Oh well we watch for a little longer and people keep winning. We look interested again and the people around us urge us to bet again. They saw it too. Julie, as much as I love her, insisted that I get our money back and insisted too. I looked around for my friend John, and couldn’t see him. I was hoping he would advise, but I really didn’t want to bet anymore. The people around me virtually yelling at me to play and that I couldn’t lose. I got out my wallet to make a small bet and the GYPSIES saw my big wad, no I didn’t say unzipped my pants. Big mistake!
Now they will take U.S. $’s. A guy to my right grabbed almost all of my cash and urged me to bet it. I’ve never been in a building burning, but I would guess the mass exodus would have less confusion than what was going on here. People grabbing my cash. Other people yelling at me to bet, including Julie and her gypsy heritage. I finally got all but $300 of my cash back and voila, no pea under the box. My friend John later tells me that some old gypsy guy pushed him away from the crowd and looked like he was ready to beat the shit out of him if he tried to stop me.
I knew I didn’t want to bet, but there was literal pandemonium. The guy doing the pea thing is urging me to bet more and he knows where the pea is. This really is a great scam. There is a trap door on the platform and when he presses down the pea is gone and so is my cash. If you would like to learn more about the scams in Barcelona and this particular one go to http://www.jones.tc/barna/scams.html
Winning Wisdom: If this dumbass can win, there’s hope for everyone.