There is No Depression in New Zealand

So, the other night, I was out drinking with some friends, as happens less and less often these days. Yes, I'm getting old, but that's another discussion entirely.

Where this discussion's going is the casino. My friends decided that they hadn't lost enough money in the slot machines at the bars we'd been to so far, and that we'd therefore head to the sky penis. I'd actually never been there before. Not surprising really, since I don't do gambling. I still haven't ever actually stuck money in a slot machine, but I tagged along.

What I found, was the most depressing place I've ever seen.

Row upon row upon row of people, hunched over the machines. Feeding money in, pressing buttons, and then feeding in more money. If it weren't for the gaudy colours it could have been a scene in Terry Gilliam's Brazil. Yet the owners of casinos tell us that this is just a form of entertainment. Those people didn't look entertained. They looked lost.

One every machine there was a sticker saying, "Problem gambling?" with some contact details. A token effort at humanity? I wanted them to read: "Problem gambling? So does the person sitting next to you."

So my friends sat down at the machines, and proceeded to lose money like everyone else around them. Since they didn't have much, that didn't take long.

As we left, one of my friends was shouting, "You see? You see these people? They've lost as much money as I have, but they're still playing!"

The first thought that crossed my mind was that there were casinos in the world where we'd soon be meeting Jimmy Hoffa.

But, looking around me, no-one even seemed to have noticed us. We were walking through ghosts, who blindly continued doing whatever it was they'd done in their previous life, oblivious to the actions of the living.

--Hewligan