Hilarity100

We dropped by the Principality that is Monaco the other day. And thanks to my love-hate relationship with lady luck I managed to visit Casino Monte Carlo and physically lose the jacket off my back.

No really.

There was a jacket on my back at the beginning of the day and there wasn't by the end. Sure the losing of the jacket and the visiting of the casino were two entirely separate events, but I like to look at these things from a broader karmic view-point.

Casino Monte Carlo is everything you would expect from the self-proclaimed most famous casino in the world. What Vagas does with sheer scale, Monte Carlo does with pure class squeezed into a tiny (by comparison) building. I didn't get into any of the serious gaming rooms though as that would involve me hearing phrases such as "That will be ten euros entry please" and "Not in that shirt sir. Sir. Sir? Please sir, let's not make a scene."

I eventually found a slot machine that would take my fifty eurocent coin and - after audibly bouncing it around inside the machine for a while - spit it back out into the payout tray with a very satisfying clink sound. We're talking exact odds of one to one return. The mathematician in me liked those odds. I spent a while sending the coin on its lap of the machine; celebrating each return as if I'd hit the jackpot - which, seeing how the house wasn't winning, I knew I had.

The jacket losing was a bit more boring. We were in the crowd watching the almighty anticlimax (that rivals the clock in Prague) changing of the royal Monaco guards. We were in a huge group of tourists, all gathered in hushed reverence to watch what amounted to one guy moving so another guy could stand in his spot, when I put my jacket down for a moment. Then an old lady walked past me, complimented me on how skinny I looked and - as far as I can piece together - swiped my jacket.

There is now an old lady out there somewhere laughing it up while she stays warm and dry in my jacket. I bet she works for the casino.