When I tire of reading and writing I turn to my computer for a diversion entirely different – games. For years I played a card game called Solitaire using a 52 card deck. The standard deck has 4 suites: clubs, spades, diamonds, hearts. And those pretty little icons have a special order of value or importance – a purpose that escapes logic. I patiently shuffled the cards, laid out the pattern and played. Winning or losing, I gathered the cards, shuffled and played again. Next time I will win. Oh yes. Silly, really, whether I win or lose because I risk nothing but loss of time. Now I let my computer shuffle for me. In fact I have set up on my computer a wide variety of games, not all requiring a deck of cards, which brings me to contemplate the fascination humans have with gambling. I put on a game and play to see if I can win. So I risk nothing tangible. A growl escapes my throat when I lose and a yell bursts forth like an idiot at my win.

Reno was a weekend destination where I limited my self to twenty dollars with which to gamble. Sometimes I could play a quarter slot machine for hours by counting the pulls on that one armed bandit to discover the frequency of payoffs. Then I fed the greedy slot more when I thought a payoff was eminent. Sometimes that really worked. But obviously I never hit a really big one. I never saw anyone who did. When a payoff was more than the coins in a machine, rockets and whistles went off supposedly to prove that the player actually got money. I think, “Just one more pull and it will be my turn. I’ve played for hours and I will get a payoff.” Yeah, right. I had kids to feed, I liked to eat too, so I set a limit, payoff or no. But I noticed other players had no such compunction. I watched them break open roll after roll of coins and persevere. Behind each jingle of a dropping coin, consciously or not, they hoped to get a return.

So what’s wrong with hope? You know hope makes a village, or some such banality. Faith, hope and charity. Hope springs eternal. Add all the trivia you’ve ever heard that applies. Human hearts are full of it. Ha. Like the heart is anything but a tireless pumper, moving my blood from the end of my tiniest toe to the top of my thinning hair and around all the miles of canals I have for that complex function. I am happy for that, but you know, that does not make my decisions. A decision that pays off makes me puff out my chest with pride. I did it right. Not always. With the wrong ones I want to insist “The devil made me do it.” I hope that if there is a next time, I will do it right. One thing I became aware of is that gamblers never learn.

Back to gaming which is what I want to wax elegantly about. Do you know that computer gaming has replaced the cell phone. There are too many places where cell phones must be turned off. Or where there is an end to the list of someone to call. Put a computer on my lap and I can amuse myself for hours – well until my rump is so numb I must get up and circulate. People lounge in easy chairs and click at the TV screen to move a warrior character in the right direction, aim to kill and race on. On airplanes, buses, and trains, we do not pick up a book or magazine to read. We open our computers and play games. I suppose that is healthy – to be so childish that we are amused by stick characters racing in a great hurry to get nowhere. Sure keeps us out of mischief, doesn’t it? The only war is make believe in a false setting far away from reality. I hope I don’t risk too much of my future by gambling against my computer.

Naomi Sherer