I was seven
At school we had these wooden building-block type toys which we were encouraged to use during class to learn how little things can be put together to make bigger things, or some such bollocks. One of the components of this construction set was some round blocks with holes all around the edges, where you could insert wooden connecting rods.

One day it struck me that those round blocks were vaguely reminiscent of something I'd seen a few times when my dad took me into his working men's club in the evenings. I went to work drawing pictures on little bits of paper and pushing them into the holes round the edge of three of these wheels, then mounted the wheels next to each other on a rod so you could spin them around with a simple wrist action (oo-er).

"Who wants a go on my fruit machine?"

Everyone did. The punters flocked around to take their turns at spinning the wheels, paying me a crayon per spin. Sometimes they won and I paid them some crayons back. More often they lost and I kept their crayon.

About fifteen minutes in the teacher realised that the class had gone far too quiet for comfort and came over to see what the new cynosure of attention was. By which time I owned every bloody crayon in that class and was pondering whether to build more fruit machines and set one up in every class in school, or just to open a crayon shop and sell everyone their crayons back.

I wouldn't have minded the tongue-lashing I got, but that bitch of a teacher made me give all the crayons back. Still, I learnt something that day ((c) South Park); from that day to this I've never once felt the urge to throw money away gambling or down the betting shop.
(Rise and Fall of the Atomic Cabbage Haven't you heard of suspension of disbelief?, Thu 11 Oct 2012, 13:16, 1 reply)

It's a good lesson to learn
'The house always wins' :-)
( JamHamster My eyes, my beautiful eyes!, Thu 11 Oct 2012, 13:20, closed)