Elephants Never Forget…

You all know the timeless adage: Elephants never forget.  We use it when we let people know that some event or comment will always be remembered.  But do you know the roots of that saying?  It’s actually based in fact. 

Apparently elephants never forget their exact place of birth!  No matter how old they become and no matter how many life experiences they’ve had and places they’ve trudged to and thru, they never forget where they were born. The only sad part about this is that elephant makes the pilgrimage back to his birthplace when he is about to die!  He ends his life where life was first given to him. Sad, but true! 

When you’re done commiserating for the noble mammal, I pose this question to you:  Have you ever been at a craps table dying to get your hands on the bones but the dice are light years away from you?  What a dilemma!   “Hurry up”, “Make your four throws, seven out and lets get those dice moving.

I want to shoot.” But wait, if everybody does that, when the dice finally get to me the table will be ice cold!  Or how about when granny, playing to your immediate right has been throwing inside numbers for 20 minutes! “Jeez, grandma save something for me, will ya!”

In both cases you foresee disaster.  Either the dice come to your doorstep with the chill of a mid-winter Chicago morning or you’re handed a sponge with every molecule of H2O squeezed out of it. And, by the way, that turn at the dice that you so eagerly anticipated…………………..It’s SHOW TIME!

If you’re faced with this situation and you get that clammy feeling coupled with the nasty little knot in the pit of your stomach, you need not worry and this is why.  The dice, those wonderful little, inanimate, celluloid cubes, unlike the elephant, have no memory! (Have you ever heard that before?)

They don’t know where they’ve come from or where they’re about to be sent.  They don’t know if they’ve come to you from off the casino floor or out of a freshly opened foil packet Fed-Ex’d to you from downtown Las Vegas. 

They don’t know if granny threw them 1800 times without tossing a seven and they certainly can’t recall if 42 people in a row have failed to make a pass.  They’re PLASTIC!  They can’t think, smell, smile, or be spiteful.

They don’t know who you are, and could care less!  They just exist! And that, boys and girls, is the best news of the day, because no matter what has transpired before those five little darlings are pushed in front of you, you and you alone get the opportunity to have them begin a new journey!

The dice will only spin, bounce and come to rest based on what you physically do to them.  Make a sloppy toss and six out of thirty-six times you’ll more than likely see a seven pop up when the dice finally expend all of their energy. But, if you take the time to set your friends correctly and give them a meaningful, heartfelt send off, you shouldn’t be surprised if you’re rewarded with a favorable result.

I have two personal instances that stand out where this has happened.  One afternoon I joined a table at the inside hook position, and although you access my articles in Mickey D. From the Hook, this is not my favorite shooting position by any means.  It’s as far away from the back wall as you can get! And that’s normally not a good place to be. 

The dice are four or five shooters away from me and no one has made a pass.  There is one lone don’t player to my immediate right who is raking in a fair amount of profit. When it’s his turn he passes the dice to me. “Oh great!” I say to myself, “I’ve got to throw in the middle of this arctic chill!”   Well I prepped myself with the notion that, “Elephants never forget, and the dice have no memory!” “These babies will only do what you allow them to do!” ”Make a good throw!” 

Twenty some odd tosses later I finally sevened out, much to the chagrin of the darksider but to the exuberant delight of the battered right bettors.   This scenario played out two or three more times.  No one could make a pass in between my shoots. I would get the dice on the heels of a very cold trend yet be able to put together money hands for everyone on the table.

In another instance, I was at a table where the previously alluded to granny, held the dice for over 20 minutes.  She threw a slew of numbers and made a boatload of passes. She sevened out and I was the unlucky soul that had to follow her act. 

“Get ready for a point-seven”, I originally thought to myself! “Grandma has used up every number on the board and then some!”  Well I started to throw the dice and a little over an hour later the devil showed and ended a surprising (at least to me!) monster roll.

The point to be made here is simple: it doesn’t matter whether you’re shooting with a trend or against it.  You can “make it happen” if you remind yourself that, ELEPHANTS NEVER FORGET, AND THE DICE HAVE NO MEMORY!

May the Dice Always Bounce in Your Favor,

Mickey D.

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