A Betting Man Forced to Be

Writing in the local paper. Local issues with a global take. I never translate literally and the editor trims at will to make it fit. Here’s my version, then theirs.

I’m not really a
betting man. I can clearly remember when my great grandfather used to get dressed up take me on his
weekly trip to his place of worship, the track. I can also recall being more interested in the horses themselves
rather than who ended up winning the race. In all the times that I played
concerts in the American gambling meccas of Las Vegas or Atlantic Beach, I can
count on one hand how many times I played the slot machines and that was
probably only to get the free beer that you got while sitting at the machine.
Traveling through the gambling capitals of Asia, the range of the different gamblers
interested me much more than the games themselves. In fact, believe it or not, here in Spain I don’t even play the Christmas lotto. But now that my holidays have finally
arrived, I’m going to take an enormous gamble. A bet that won’t involve a blindman selling scratchcards or the results of a football match, but in fact a ticket agent at RENFE (the Spanish train company). I’ve
got a flight I need to take in Madrid and I’m going to gamble and take the
train to the capital on the same day. Where’s the gamble you might ask? Perhaps you haven’t
seen all of the accidents that have taken place on the commuter trains that they call long-distance to Madrid the past month. I’ve given myself five hours between when the
train arrives and when my flight is scheduled to depart but I wonder what the
bookmakers in London would make of those odds? Who should I complain to if I
miss my flight? Maybe President of Extremadura can ask his dear friend and fellow party member, Pedro Sanchez to
ask in Congress why we still are using infrastructure from the nineteenth century while we export bullet trains to Mecca? The
odds on that working are about as good as they were when Monago finally wrested
Extremadura from the century of PSOE rule only be completely ignored by his
friends in Genova. If indeed I do actually arrive on time, do you know how I’m
going to celebrate? I’m going to look for the nearest Lottery seller.