One armed bandit!
Back when I was 18 a mate and I went on a camping/cycling trip around the South West coast. Being 18 we essentially had no money so everything was on a shoe string.

Having booked onto a campsite in Illfracombe (North Devon) we decided to treat ourselves to a drink in the onsite pub. As you can imagine shoe string budget didn't equate to a fine family holiday park, more the kind of campsite that might have been popular 30 years ago and still has the same annual pilgrims who dare not try somewhere else for their holiday, next years one no doubt paid for before they leave this year.

I took the last £2 I had on me and bought a pint of cider (£1.95). I spied they had an old fashioned one armed bandit on the wall which ran on the old style 5p coins which were available from the bar, so I decided to fritter my last coin away on that.

In the coin went with the chink chink metal on metal sound those of us old enough will remember from reliable BT payphone engineering in the 1980's. I grasped the ball of the lever in my weary sweaty palm and gave it a tug. Having never been one of those kids who understood the concept of gambling and especially not fruit machines it can have only been in my best interest that there were no complex nudge buttons etc.

Chink! Cherry.
Chink! Cherry.
"ooh!" thought I as I desperately scanned the payout instructions to see if I might have won enough for some crisps. Meanwhile the third wheel spun and whirled for what seemed like an eternity.....
Chink! Cherry!
Alarms went off like I was breaking into the Queens bedroom and the machine began a metallic pumping farting noise as it began to spit coin after coin out into the small metal dish beneath it which quickly overflowed with Queen Liz branded shrapnel.

The bar fell silent and a dozen pair of eyes glared at the giggling idiot who was now standing in a puddle of silver coins on the sticky 70's patterned carpet.

I grabbed a couple of empty ashtrays and began gathering up what felt like the entire royal mints production run of 5p coins. If you've ever seen £10 in old 5p coins you can appreciate the mess I'd made but I was beaming from ear to ear.

I made my way to the bar and the barman, who for some reason pissed off at me, and began to count up the £10 in coins. After a bit of chitter chatter it turns out the pissed off middle aged lady at the bar has been on holiday there for 6 of her 7 nights and has for the last week been sat filling the machine with her drinking money each night like mentalist pops pills.

After about 5 minutes the barman has finished counting the coins, £10.05. He hands me 2 £5 notes and my original 5p coin.

"It's not done to leave the winning line" he scowls at me like I've broken some ultimate bar taboo of leaving a gambling machine displaying the fact that somebody actually won something.

Ok I think to myself, I've done ok here. £8 in my pocket and a pint in my tummy.

I saunter back to the machine, the weight the glares from disgruntled holidaymakers digging in my back like a polar bear on a German tourist.

I stick the lone 5p coin into the machine and pull the handle, turning immediately to walk back to my mate at the bar without having any interest in the result.

Chink!..... Chink!......Chink!

The only thing louder than the 2nd set of alarm bells and river of coins raining down onto the carpet behind me was the silence of stunned bar and the thump thump thump of the throbbing vein on the gambling grannie's temple as I scooped another 3 cherry jackpot. I thought she was gonna explode with rage or just die on the spot.

Needless to say I wasn't asked to clear the winning line again.
(golddust QOTW now revolves around being a cunt, Thu 7 May 2009, 14:26, Reply)