Lucky in cards, unlucky in love
October 27th, 2008 
Over this past summer, I probably played more card games with more people than anything else. It was a fun thing to do when you’re out in the middle of nowhere with no internet, no phone, no city life to speak of and surrounded by a ton of friends.
So we played. We played President, Egyptian Rat Screw, five more rounds of Egyptian Rat Screw, and then more President. It was that or hiking, and as I learned on the last Saturday afternoon of my middle-of-nowhere adventure, hiking is not among my strongest talents.
One of the things that always drove me crazy about the games we played was how I always seemed to lose, especially at Rat Screw, which is based off of fast reflexes. And even though the best friend and I both learned the game at the same time, she was infinitely better than I was.
“How is that possible?”, I asked her one day as we were walking across the camp grounds.
“You know, it’s not all that great.” She replied. “The first time I beat my sister and her boyfriend at a card game I’d just learned, they called it beginner’s luck. When I won almost every time after that, they started to get worried. You know what they say—lucky in cards, unlucky in love.”
I laughed out loud. “If that were true, I’d be on my way to happily ever after by now.”
We played cards for the rest of the ten days. I never got any better, and she never got any worse.
Several months later, I started collecting playing cards. I found my first card last Monday. It was the seven of hearts. I’d say that’s crazy luck right there, but I wouldn’t want to jinx it now, would I?
Heh, if that line was true, I’d be married by now too. But that 7 of hearts is freaky.
Reply: Hahaha yeah… It is!
October 27th, 2008 at 10:48 pmI found a playing card recently too! It’s an 8 of clubs. I looked it up and apparently it means this -
Eight of Clubs:
A successful gamble. Card of chance, you will win the gamble. If your sixth sense tells you to stop gambling for now, rely on your intuition. Advances in business on the eight day of month, or in August.
As for a 7 of hearts, it apparently means -
Seven of Hearts:
Happy love. Contentment. Wealth of opportunities await you. Your wishes for romance are granted on the seventh of the month, in seven weeks from now, or in July.
Hmmm, sounds promising!
Reply: Hahaha wow, I never knew they had meanings behind them! Crazy. Thanks for sharing. :)
October 27th, 2008 at 11:34 pmBah! I suck at card games. Yet, I suck at romance :-( *sniff, sob, sniff, sob*
Reply: Hahaha, join the club. :(
October 28th, 2008 at 12:51 pmI completely forgot about Egyptian Rat Screw. My friends and I used to play that during every possible free moment in high school. You just made my night.
(And yes, I’d say that’s crazy lucky.)
Reply: Glad to be of service. :D … I really miss that game now, even though I was totally sick of it by the end of summer. Nothing builds the bonds of friendship more than smashing your best friend’s hand whenever you see doubles or runs!
October 29th, 2008 at 11:20 pmNice find! I always liked the post-casino decks with the hole punched out of the middle.
FYI, you might want to scale the image down to a width of 600px rather than just declaring it in the image tag. :-)
Reply: Do the casinos punch the holes in them, then? I didn’t know that! … I just assumed that some decks came with holes in them. :P
Also - I used to do resize the images, but then I got lazy when I remembered that declaring it could work just as well… but I’m assuming by you telling me this, it probably doesn’t display as well on my computer as it does on others? :( … In any case, I will look into it or just go back to scaling it down. Thanks for the heads up! :)
October 30th, 2008 at 2:40 pmYou’re welcome! The picture looks much better now. The edges just get a little jaggy in most browsers when the declared image size doesn’t exactly match the actual image size.
I think the casinos punch the holes so that they can’t be used on the tables anymore?
Reply: Ah, make sense! I don’t exactly frequent casinos so I wouldn’t really have much of an idea otherwise. :P
October 31st, 2008 at 12:46 pm