SPEAKING IN TONGUES, Part 200

February rolled around and I was invited once again to the Pinochle Club.  After my January performance, I was just a little surprised to be invited back so soon.  I figured it would have taken them longer to forget my transgressions at the table. As usual, I studied from dusk until dawn every evening prior to game night.  I had had several conversations about bidding strategies over the month, had a new attitude about taking the bid, and I was feeling pretty confident about holding up my end of the partnership.

It was at the last table of the night, Table #4, when my world came crashing down. Once again, I was partnered with Melvin.  His eyebrows already looked pretty high on his forehead.  He had partnered with me previously at Table #1 and it had been ugly.  I had not brought my A Game to Table #1, and maybe not even my B Game.  I just did not have the cards to work any magic. Then we moved to play against each other at Table #5. The cards were still not respecting me, and he and his partner outplayed me and my partner.  They may have even each had one hand tied behind their respective backs, for all I know. Between my late night lassitude and the witty wordplay happening around me, I was having a concentration crisis. Melvin had not seen me at my most super, but maybe witnessed me at my worst.  

Back to Table #4, it was Melvin's turn to open the bidding.  He looked into my eyes, leaned forward a little, enunciated slowly and clearly with a very serious tone, "Six Hundred."  Yes, I could hear that capital H.  I stared back into his eyes.   His face was exhibiting no emotion and his eyes continued to bore into mine.  Dear Reader, it was as if the entire room had frozen and we were the only people in it.  "Holy Crap!", I thought.  "He is speaking to me in a secret code!"  It was then that I realized my folly.  "He thinks I speak that language!"  

For the 22 hands before this one, I had been cheerfully chirping bids with not a care in the cosmos.  Foolishly, I had thought I was speaking my partners' language, when in actuality, I was speaking Pig Latin. While I had been bidding to be polite, they were all sending smoke signals to me, trying to communicate the marriages, slugs and Pinochles in their hands. 

My eyes did not leave Melvin's eyes.  "Pass", I choked out.  Melvin's eyebrows shot upward to what should have been his hairline.  He took the bid at six hundred, called the trump and then proceeded to give me a dressing down at the table.  "When I bid Six Hundred, I expect my partner to give a meld bid, if you have any decent hand at all, even just a good slug!" he started in.  I set down my meld of two marriages.  "I didn't have anything", I squeaked. I glanced at his meld as he laid it down and proclaimed, "I have a Thousand Aces!" (Dear Reader, this means eight aces, two in each suit.) My mouth may or may not have been hanging open as I thought, "How on Earth was I supposed to know that Six Hundred meant a Thousand Aces?????"  We easily won that hand, and the last hand of the night as well, letting our competition have only four and nine tricks out of fifty, respectively.  Dear Reader, this was a most excellent thing.  

When it was all over, Melvin was once again all smiles, and his eyebrows had returned to their natural habitat.  He was especially jolly as he had come up as the Big Winner of the night.  He proudly proclaimed to anyone who would listen, and even those who wouldn't, how I had helped him earn that title, as well as the $24 kitty. He clearly felt personally responsible for all of the successful progress I had made since October, downplaying any of the hard work I had done on my own in the wee hours.  Obviously, I was Eliza Doolittle to his Henry Higgins.  I held back the impulse to break out in the classic song from My Fair Lady, Just You Wait.

I left the February game feeling exhilarated for holding my own, yet full of trepidation. March was just around the corner and I had less than a month to become fluent in a new language.

SPEAKING IN TONGUES, Part 100

Pinochle has become my latest obsession.  Specifically, monthly Pinochle with a group that has probably been meeting since before I was born. I am sure that several of the nonagenarians are original stakeholders, while other players were born in to membership. Then there are those like me, drafted into service due to a shortage of professional participants.  Eager to play again, I have instructed my family and friends that my calendar is hereby cleared on all Saturdays, to ensure my availability up to the last minute.

As I explained in Pinochle Purse, I was called with less than a week before the October gathering and challenged with the question, "Are you trainable?"  There is really no way to answer that other than "yes", and thus began my whirl-wind education. That week in my crash course, I learned about marriages, slugs, and of course, the Pinochle.

By the time the January game night came around, I was so hopped up on caffeine and sugar that I could barely speak.  I had not played since the October game, and I felt rusty.  I had studied all day with cards, notes, the computer, texting and even a few frantic phone calls.  I was confident in my ability to count meld, but hopelessly inexperienced with regard to bidding.  With a helpful formula in my head, the mathematician in me was able to hesitantly, and reluctantly, bid a couple of times with some success.  Or so I thought.  

It was the 24th hand, the last hand of the night.  I sorted my cards into suits and began methodically counting my meld.   With my best comportment on display, my back ached from sitting ram rod straight on the edge of my chair all night.  My mouth was dry and my lips were sticking to my teeth.  The smile that I had pasted on in the hopes of looking pleasant had surely turned to a grimace by now.  My heart started to race. Normally cold, I felt a trickle of sweat run down my neck.  Great Balls of Fire, I had Double Jacks Around!  (For the Uneducated Readers, this means eight jacks, two of each suit.)  I knew this was something big, but I had never come across it in my meld training, or in the wild, and I had no idea how much it was worth. I glanced around, hoping to see a Pinochle Rules brochure hanging from the light fixture by some dental floss, or being used as a shim under a table leg.  Although I authored Pinochle Purse less than a month before, I failed to follow my own advice; my rule book was at home, simulating a coaster. 

It was my turn to bid.  The other three people at the table looked at me expectantly, if not a bit impatiently.  I coughed.  "Er, I don't know how much my hand is worth."  The competitor at my right smiled indulgently at me.  "You haven't counted your hand yet?"  I cleared my throat.  "No, I don't know how much this particular, er, phenomenon is worth."  My partner frowned.  Melvin always looked worried when paired with me, and tended to fidget annoyingly when he thought we were doing poorly. The others at the table looked around.  "Trudy!", someone bawled into the kitchen where the desserts were being cut.  "Come and help her count her hand!" I held back a groan and hoped that I had not ground my teeth so loudly that Melvin could hear.  

Trudy, the dessert knife in her hand and a kitchen towel on her arm, leaned over my shoulder.  I could feel her breath in my hair as she counted my cards.  I tapped my jacks.  "I don't know how much that is worth," I mumbled.  "Sweet Jesus!", Trudy exclaimed in a whisper.  "That is worth four hundred points, and your Double Pinochle is worth three hundred", her voice grew louder in my ear, "you could take the bid up to eight hundred!" I stopped breathing.  I had not even spotted the Double Pinochle.

The bid normally starts at five hundred, and I had never bid more than five hundred thirty.  My stomach did a flip. Harry had opened at five hundred, my partner Melvin had passed and Harry's partner had passed.  It was up to me to win the bid, declare trump and control the hand. "Five ten", I said, confidently.  Harry immediately countered with five twenty, and I quickly responded with five thirty.  Harry continued easily to five forty. I glanced at the reflection in the picture window and saw that Trudy was still standing right behind me with the knife in her hand. I was secretly scared of Trudy, and I suspect I was not the only one. There was nothing to do but bid.  I glanced at Melvin, who was not so subtly giving me the thumbs up sign.  I came back with five fifty.  Harry smoothly drove the bid up and each time I countered with a little more catch in my voice, after checking the reflection. Trudy had forgotten about the desserts and was standing guard.  Smelling my fear, she was not about to let me lose the bid to Harry.  Meanwhile, Melvin was nervously tapping a tattoo with his cards on the table. To me, the sound was like a deafening death march.  Harry finally shook his head and I took the bid at Six Ninety, a number I could barely rasp out in my nervous state.  The bidding over, we counted the meld and began the play, all of which became a blur of relief.  Melvin and I easily won that last hand, with a crowd of curious onlookers nodding their approval. When it was over, Melvin's worried face melted away and he was all smiles. He clapped me on the back, congratulated me, and then ambled into the kitchen.  He had worked up an appetite for dessert after all.

The crowd dispersed and I remained in my seat, suddenly overcome with cold.  My stomach felt hollow. My teeth chattered. My hands were shaking.  I wondered, "What have I gotten myself into, that I look so forward to and yet afterward end up a shaking mess?"  I took a long shuddering breath to calm myself before slipping unseen out the front door. 

The next day I got an email from my dad.  It said, "Be careful! Pinochle is just a gateway drug to Bridge!"