POKER NIGHT!!!

Okay that last blog was pretty depressing, so I will try to redeem myself by posting a blog about Poker Night! Last night was my monthly poker night with the boys! It's a ritual we have been keeping up for the past 6 or 7 years. Every month we get together and play cards, eat junk food, call each other names, bust out a few four letter words and just generally have a good time.

This is also my "religious" group of friends. There is no drinking beer or smoking cigars at this poker game. In fact...they aren't even supposed to be gambling. We even got in the habit of calling our monthly poker night "Recipe Club". That way when they are in church they can just say "Don't forget we have Recipe Club this Thursday night". But hey...everyone needs to hang on to a few vices!

There is something about getting together with the guys that allows you to stop taking yourself so seriously. We seem to get great pleasure out of belittling each other on poker night. Nothing is off limits and we just accept that it is all in good fun.

Every month the topic of conversation will come around to my dating life. I am the only single guy in the group and so all my friends want to either live vicariously through my successful dating experiences or make fun of my lack of a sex life. And that's an area where guys love to prove their manhood or destroy their friends' confidence. Inevitably there will also be a reference to one's size or lack thereof. For instance; the ante in Texas Hold'em is called the "Big Blind" and the "Little Blind". Someone will always forget where we are in the rotation and ask "Am I little?" And as if there is an instinctive reaction built into the male DNA, the response will be something like "That's what your wife says". And we don't even have to wait for our friends to cut us down. Sometimes we joke about ourselves as in "Come on guys, someone tell me I'm "Big" because this is the only place I get to hear that". Anything for a laugh!

We talk about sports. We joke about getting old. We quote lines from classic movies. We make fun of the guy losing the most money! We cuss at the guy winning the most money! We stay up way too late even though we all have to get up for work the next morning. And at the end of the night we all thank the host and start looking forward to next month. Thank God for Poker Night!!!