Cut

Last night, during the poker game with coworkers I had just won a hand which I was dealing and was raking in the chips when somebody noticed that one of my opponents had miscalled his hand. He had actually won. I grew up playing that you had to call your own cards. So in a fluster I asked the house, "But that's not right, you have to call your own cards." He told me that was house rules and that I had lost. I said, "Okay." (I actually looked up the official rules online and found that "cards speak" which means I was officially wrong.) Still, I was flustered.

Then there was this strange pause and one of the guys gives a strange half-speech-like pronouncement, holding a deck of green cards up high, that somebody had cheated or something. I was still in the middle of remembering my grandpa teaching me how to play poker... and thinking Daddy would say the same... *you* have to call your hand... but then taken in by this odd pronouncement that *something* had happened... by the sound of it I thought it was some joke... as I was having a hard time keeping up with all the conversation bouncing all over the place...

Then I found out the pronouncement was about *me*. *I* was caught cheating while cutting the deck. *I* had looked at the bottom card and then cut it to the middle. One person was nodding in agreement during the pronouncement. Then others started saying, "I didn't see anything!"

I was shocked. I honestly didn't remember even holding any cards between the pulling chips, miscall-recall, house challenge, pushing chips back. I had no defense other than I didn't do it.

On that hand I happened to be dealer. The dealer button was passed and I was supposed to cut for the next dealer. I'm guessing somebody handed me a deck of cards and I opened them up and stuck them back together. I'm guessing I looked.

Now I was more flustered than ever. Could people think I was upset over my challenge so I tried to sneak a peak on the cut --- as if that'd help me??? I just wanted to clear things up so I said, "Look I *really* don't even know what happened." To this, the guy who had brought it up gave another speech, humorous, about the movie Contact and believing in aliens or something and said, "I believe you." And then I think there was another round of "I didn't see anything!" to which the house calmed me by saying, "It's nothing... you were on auto-pilot..."

I think the whole time, the more disconcerting thing was the thought, "I *don't* cheat. They think I could. Haven't I shown them?"

And still today, I know it was no big deal... but I can't let it go... but if you only knew how much I didn't cheat... inside and outside the game... straight up... A lot of what it's all about, my leaving, is just that. It's so the opposite.