Chapter 2- Way to go Tim-Money

I start cleaning my house sending the mob of Roos back to their own house and thank heavens my b/f is away on training in southern California for the next few months, I had the house all to myself save for my bitchy pit bull who was constantly running across the newly mopped floors. I check the clock again Jacs should be on her way now, I call my brother Jess and commandeer his dodgy truck for the day.

I get over the excitement of the flight by the third hour, and try to get some sleep. I know I won’t be getting very much once I get there. It is still two weeks before the convention, so that will give us a chance to get to know each other. I doubt I will get much sight seeing done, and really the only sights I want to see are going to be at the convention.

At last I get on the road and step on the gas anxious to get to the airport, thank heavens it’s not raining, because there’s quite a leak from the truck’s dodgy sunroof. At last I pull into the airport terminal and park, rush inside and stand at the gates. I just can’t sit still though and pace back and forth as I wait.

The flight finally arrives and I am anxious to get off of this flying tin can. It is a long time to spend in a little tiny cramped space. The progression through customs is agonizingly slow. Security was very tight now and I got more than a few strange looks from the customs official at my assorted stuffed animals. “Gifts” I mutter, just wanting to get through this quickly. He grunted at me and finally cleared me, having decided that I wasn’t a mad bomber after all.

I giggle as I noticed Jacs come strolling down the walkway, arms laden with luggage; I am a brat and hold up a cardboard sign that reads “Welcome Kracker Jacs”

When I see the sign, I burst out laughing. “Evek you bastard” I scream out and push my way forward through the crowd.

”Madred!!” I squeal, saying the name of one of her Cardassian characters and run towards her dropping the sign, I give her a big hug and even cry a bit because I am so damn happy to finally meet her.

We had been writing together on various stories all year, but I knew that Evek had been her favorite character. We had had so much fun as the evil, but dignified, Cardassians. I was hoping we would have time to visit the Star Trek Experience while we were in Vegas too. When Arls gets to me, I drop my bags and hug her, laughing and crying at the same time, still hardly believing that it was her.

”Wow, damn you are really here” I say with sniffles “The Glorious Guls are together at last, C’mon lets get out of this airport” We start walking past a few slot machines and I give her a grin “Care to try your luck before we hit the road?”

I wasn’t much of a gambler and I had no U.S money, not having had a chance to change any yet. “I have to find somewhere to change this” I turned to her. “I finally got all of my Tim-money back, every cent.”

”Gotta love the Tim-money” I laugh, we had been joking about Tim-money for months it seemed, Tim was Jacs’ ex-boyfriend and he had owed her money for quite some time but finally he had paid up in full. “There’s a cashier over there, they can fix up the Tim Money for ya” We head over to the Cashier and soon Jacs has a handful of the American version of Tim-Money.

“This is the last of it” I tell her as we lug all my gear over there. I hand over all of my money to buy some US dollars, appalled at the exchange rate, but that was how things were.

”This one over here is a good game” I say as we check out the dollar Wheel of Fortune machine “It’s got a progressive jackpot worth 98 thousand dollars and some change if you line up all three of the wheel of fortune symbols” Jacs and I hover about the machine for a moment and I pull out a 20 dollar bill and slide it into one of the machines “Crap I totally got shafted” I laugh as I lose the 20 credits a little too quickly “Maybe you’ll have beginner’s luck”

I had no idea what I was doing, but it was Reno after all, so as they say, when in Rome.....I pull out one of my recently acquired $20 notes and slipped it in, doing the same thing that Arls had done. I knew she used to work at a casino, so was happy to follow her lead.

I watch as the machine sucked down the Tim money until there was only 3 credits remaining, “One spin left Jacs” I say “Close your eyes and pull the handle” I say crossing my fingers. I shut my eyes tightly as Jacs gets ready to pull back the lever one final time.

I do as she says, feeling faintly ridiculous, but it was money I never had expected to get back, so I figure what the hell and close my eyes and pull the handle.

I hold my breath and wait with my eyes closed, then suddenly there is this loud ringing sound and these bells start going off and we hear the person next to us gasp loudly, I feel it’s now safe to peek so I open one eye and look back at the machine...what I see almost makes me faint “Holy Fuck Jacs!” I scream.

“What?” I ask in alarm, opening my eyes and looking around, wondering what the hell was happening. In my imagination I imagined some kind of gang fight or something. The place was going crazy and people were gaping at me. “Shit Arls, what is going on?”

”Jacs” I say my voice squealing in excitement “You fucking just won the jackpot and not just any jackpot...you won the lot of it hun...I’m talking 98 thousand dollars!...way to go TIM MONEY”

I look at her in shock. Finally when I have enough wits to speak I gasp out “You are bullshitting me right?” I could see that I had won, but when you win on these things, you are lucky to get a couple of bucks back.

As soon as Jacs said anything the floor attendant approached her and said happily “Congratulations, you just won the progressive jackpot...$98,425.00” I glance over at Jacs who still wasn’t sure this was real or not. I hug her tightly “You are one lucky bitch” I laugh happy for her, she had been through a lot of shit over the last year and it was about time something great happened for her.

“What?” I ask him stupidly, still not able to believe it. I never win anything. But as the realization starts to sink in, I can feel the stupid grin creeping over my face. “Arls? I finally escape from the hug “Do you know what this means?”

”What’s that?” I ask still with an insanely stupid grin on my face.

“We can go first class all the way. Holy shit, nothing but the best” my hands are shaking, and I am feeling like I am in some kind of weird dream. The manager escorts us over to the office and we sit down, gladly taking a drink from him. As I sit down I am still smiling like an idiot.

”Oh shit yeah” I say still in shock, just as Jacs tried to relax and take a sip of her drink, a group of onlookers started crowding around her, one guy with a British accent and stupid hot dog pants asks her “Can uhhh... can I have some of that Tim money?” I look back at the creep and say “Shove off wanker, leave her alone” We then notice that the casino manager has just poured us both two glasses of Cristal Champagne, I toast her and say “To the best buddy ever”

“To connecting with my buddy” I toast back handing her 25 dollars. Everything seems so unreal, but now I can pay back the air fare and we can do the trip in style. “Arls, this whole week, the whole lot of it, is going to be on me. Now take the 25 bucks and I don’t want to hear about Kanar or orange jumpsuits again” I grin at her. The Great Kanar swindle of 25 bars of latinum was something she was never going to let me live down.

I give her a triumphant look. “I knew I would finagle my way out of that orange jumpsuit.” There is nothing quite as sweet as a long fought-for victory. We had been arguing over the color of that jumpsuit for months. She had even gone so far as to doctor a picture of Kyle from when he was back in the Centre so it looked like he was in orange. She was never going to forgive me for the Kanar Swindle.

Later after the manager had her fill out all the paperwork and everything is settled, he hands her 25 thousand dollars in cash and a cashier’s check for the rest. “Let’s get out of here Jacs” I say as we push our way though the crowd and head for the exit.

I follow Arls, half stunned and buzzing from the drink. I have a wad of cash tucked away in my bag and a check in my wallet. Security guards follow us out to the car to make sure we are not hassled. That creepy guy in the hot dog pants had scared me a little. We get to her rickety old truck and I climb in.

I start up the truck and put her in reverse anxious to get away from the airport and that weird fellow in those damn ugly ass pants “We are homeward bound” I laugh and pull out of the parking lot.

After a little while, it all starts to sink in. Arls is driving on the wrong side of the road and it is very disconcerting. “Arls, we have to go shopping, oh my god. What a night we are going to have tonight.”

”Oh my lord we sure are” I say “We can check out the malls here in Reno if you like Susanville has shitty little stores at best...let’s stop at the liquor store too, I think we deserve a few bottles of the Good Stuff”

“Abso-fraggin-lutely” I tell her. “And lets get that damned DVD recorder you been talking about. We can spend the next few days recording all my DVDs for you” I laugh at the prospect of a drunken few days watching the Pretender. It would be heaven. People will ask me when I got back what sights I saw and I will only be able to tell them that I barely left the living room at Arls’ place.

I look back at her in surprise “Awww are you sure hun? Wow a DVD recorder, gosh shit, I am so gonna cry again.” We head down south Virginia Street where all the massive hotel Casinos are and make our way to Meadow wood Mall. “Let’s do some damage” I laugh giving her a wink as we head into the mall.

“Knock yourself out Arls, anything you want. This is just going to be great” Everything here is about twice the size of things back home and I feel like a stupid Aussie tourist, which I guess I am.

”Awww hun, you are the bestest of the bestest” I say with a grin, as we hit the stores, scooping up loads of new clothes. “Check out this shop Jacs” I say “It’s got loads of movie and music memorabilia” Inside we find lots of U2 stuff and Jacs has a field day grabbing up whatever she can find. “She’s a fan” I giggle to the salesman as she keeps grabbing more and more things off the shelves.

I had never seen so much stuff in one place. “Where I am from, we just can’t get stuff like this. Arls, we have to think about what to wear, wanna look our best” there were too many things I wanted, didn’t know where to look first.

We shopped for hours it seemed Jacs loved the music stores and we had great fun trying on all kinds of clothes “You know what would be fun, when we get to Vegas we so have to go to the day spa and get makeovers.”

“Yes” I answered eagerly, turning our attention to some booze and food for when we got back.

Jacs had pretty much cleaned out the music store of their U2 stuff, she bought so much the sales guy, even offered to carry all our shit out to the truck for us. We find a store and load up on food and lots of liquor then start the 80 mile trip to my house back in California.

By the time we got back to the truck, we had spent over $4100.00 I was ecstatic. “Arls, I am going to blow all of this money on this trip, so start thinking about what you want to do. And I gotta pay Lil Roo back too” I told her. If it hadn’t been for him, I never would have gotten here in the first place. I was looking forward to meeting these crazy brothers of hers.

I look back at Jacs and then say “We gotta make one last stop Jacs, how about we watch those Pretender DVDs of yours in style” I turn off at the nearest Circuit city an electronics store “I do have some money squirreled away and I have been dying to buy I big screen tele, A damn fine one too…..think a 50 inch screen is too big to watch Jarod on?” I laugh.

“Keep that money Arls, this is on the casino” I laugh, hardly believing my good fortune, and I was going to make sure this was the best damn holiday I ever had.

”Damn Krackers what would the Ferengi alliance say about this” I joke as we head off to buy the new tele.

“I think Krackers would be exiled from Ferenginar for all eternity, but if you don’t tell, neither will I”

”I won’t say a word” I laugh, after we get the sales boy to wheel out the new set and put it in back of the truck, we are off once again “Just cross your fingers it doesn’t rain or snow on us”

I look around at the scenery, and am disappointed when there is not all that much to see. It was my first trip to the states and I was very curious.

”It’s all freaking desert out here” I say “Not much to see really” It was getting dark now and after a few hours, we pulled into my driveway, the house was pitch black, I look at Jacs and say sorry about this but the truck is dodgy so you gotta roll down the window and open it from the outside or your stuck in here.