Little Old Ladies

I live in Upstate new York. We're not talking, Westchester county ( We call them "downstaters") we're talking Northern New York, capital district (that's Albany, for those of you that don't know your state capitals---by the way what's with THAT, anyway....we should all be familiar with state capitals....after all this is the country we live in and all the states are part of it....but wait a minute I'm getting off on one of my tangents....sorry) anyway, I live in the North country of New York, Saratoga Springs to be exact (don't give me the crap about...."omigod, you should never tell anyone where you live.... for God's sake you can find out about how many times I poop in a day if you do the research on the net, so what's the big deal about saying an area where I live??? geesh...)

Saratoga Springs is known for all sorts of things, Health (we have mineral springs, baths, and many massage areas...I think I'm supposed to live longer than the average person because I've lived here for so long...although, I don't think the folks that think that way understand that with the minerals comes, radium, strontium 90 (whatever THAT is?),and those things kill you....I figure one wipes out the other so I'm going to live as long as my body wants me too.), Horses (we have the oldest thoroughbred race track in the US that brings the city to a frenzied pace July-September. We get all the rich and wanna be rich folks here at that time as well...I'm not so sure that's the best thing) Houses (we have many gorgeous homes "painted ladies" from a by gone era. Most of them are original, then we have the new ones that look like the originals but with more amenities for modern life. I like the old ones better. Walking into the old ones, you get a feeling of majesty. The new ones have a phony facade, once you step into their "foyays" (a.k.a. foyers) the resemblance ceases. The new beauties are clearly copycats, and not always good ones, at that) and History(We are the site of the famous Saratoga Battlefield and all that goes along with the war things of the Revolutionary war).

We also have the Harness racing track which houses the Racino, gambling establishment. We've always been a city with a gambling history, so when the Racino came to town it didn't surprise me. What has surprised me is the number of little old ladies who frequent the place.

Now, listen, I'm a little (well...maybe not so little) old lady, but I gotta tell you I'm not like some of these ladies I encountered in a recent foray to the wilds of Racino...

Normally I'd say, " Now close your eyes as I describe this..."but since you wouldn't be able to read this if your eyes were closed, imagine this...

I walk in to a noisy, light flashing, machine laden building. People are on chairs in front of machines that are enticing them to feed the machines. The machines have buttons, bells and whistles, and if you can get them in the right sequence you might be able to get about 10% of the money you just lost, back. The people you must watch out for are the little ones with the white,gray,or thinning hair. They usually look pretty friendly, but watch out, they can turn on you in an instant. I mean really bad. You might lose an arm or a leg, at the very least you'll get tripped or have the chair pulled out from under your butt.

These women all look like some body's Grandmother, but it isn't true. They're wearing masks to put you off guard. They're bad asses, listen up.

I sat down next to one of these women. She immediately pulled her sweater over the top of her pocketbook sitting on her lap. She bent her head down towards the bag, shifted her eyes toward me, and I swear to God, her mask started to slip and I'm sure I saw the face of an alien monster from the planet Klingon looking at me. She sort of growled at me when I smiled trying to diffuse what I thought might get ugly. I quickly pulled my players card from the machine and walked away facing her, God help me, I didn't want to turn my back on her... No telling what would have happened. I found a machine by itself with no one near it. I sat for a minute trying to catch my breath and bring my heart back to a normal beat.

I feel it's my duty to warn society about these...women. They look pretty normal. Most of them wear, pants, sweaters with some kind of design on them or sweatshirts that say, "World's Best Grandma"--yeah right. The worst ones are the ones with really badly made up faces. You know, eyebrows that no human should have, round rouged cheek bones, eye shadow in colors that are unearthly, lipstick so thick you can cut it with a knife (that's to camouflage the real lips....). So be on the lookout for this species if you go to a casino, I hear they're all over the place. (The casinos AND the little old ladies (?) ).