I was sitting downstairs yesterday morning with two crisp $100 bills in my pocket when Susan reminded me the realtor would be here in an hour to go through and assess our house.

Columbus Day is a “mommy and daddy” holiday, where the kids have to go to school but Susan and I are off work. Four or five years ago the two of us decided that would be a good day to a local casino during the day, and that has turned into a tradition.

With the closing date on our new house less than two weeks away, “the move” has begun to work its tentacles into every minute of our days. If someone’s not packing then at least someone’s talking about packing. There’s the acquisition of boxes, and the packing of boxes, and the labeling of boxes, and the stacking of boxes. There’s the scheduling, and the stacking of schedules. It’s the logistics of solving a puzzle that someone keeps adding pieces to. There’s the constant mental juggling of who needs to call whom, and when.

With two hundred bucks burning a hole in my pocket, I waited for the realtor to arrive. She did, and was very nice. She walked through the house and told us what needed to be repaired and what was okay.

After the realtor was done, Susan wanted to run to Home Depot to purchase blinds, and door stoppers, and stain for the deck. And while we were there, our friend James (the plumber) called and said he was on his way to the house to fix the rear faucet that’s been busted for two years. With two arm loads full of blinds and light bulbs, we raced back to the house to meet him. Before James was finished with his repair, the housekeeper Susan had contacted arrived and began scrubbing everything that used to be white and making it white again. Before she was done, it was time to stop by the local storage unit place and look into getting a storage unit. Then it was time to pick Morgan up from school. Then it was time for dinner.

We finished dinner around 7pm, and while it was a bit selfish of me, I mentioned to Susan that I had been thinking about going to the casino all day. I know she was exhausted — it was literally the first time all day she had stopped moving — but she agreed to go with me. After waiting twelve hours, those two $100 bills were finally going to see some action.

In less than thirty minutes, I had won $387 on one slot machine, and $215 on another. If I know one thing about casinos, it’s to quit while you’re ahead. With $600 in our pockets and two complimentary drinks from the free drink station, we piled back into the truck and made our way back home.

While winning at the casino is always nice, not thinking about moving for an hour was even nicer!