Cold as ICE

Ever-optimistic Big Frank and his long-suffering wife head back to frozen England and find that a casino conference in London – in January – is no winter wonderland.

Unlike Rush Limbaugh’s personal trainer, I like being busy. It does after all keep me young – or at least, keeps my mind off being the other word. The only sticking point to my endless social whirl is that I have about as much free time as one of Beyoncé’s bra straps. Post-launch, Big Frank says that our online casino is cranking up to meltdown, though how this is possible when only twelve people have signed up, I couldn’t say. But hubby #3 is adamant that we’re on the way to our first million. We were also on our way to UK’s capital for another show.

London, England was colder than my ex-husband’s lawyer. Whoever thought of putting on a show here in January for heaven’s sake? I say, find ’em, strip ’em and leave ’em handcuffed to a Thank Your Lucky Slots machine in the car park. Everything was booked solid. While Big Frank got in the staff dorms at the Sheraton by posing as a night porter, I was offered the option of sharing a suite the size an LAX Terminal with this woman who was some big-shot in Middle Eastern bingo. Strangely for an Israeli woman her coiffured locks were (a) blonde, and (b) straight as a Hollywood actor going for a leading man role. I haven’t run so fast since seeing a poster for Mother Teresa the Musical, because as grannie used to say, “Never trust a woman who irons her hair.”

In less than the time it would take for a major asteroid to crash into the planet and wipe out our entire ecosystem, I was standing in the packed lobby of the International Casino Exhibition at Earl’s Court. With its seven sparkling gaming sectors, ICE was a celebration of tacky over taste. It was also packed to the gills. In no time, I lost Big Frank in the crowds and found myself crushed between thirty Coco the Clowns, a dozen half-naked showgirls, and this tiny guy who bored me stupid nattering incessantly about his no-download poker offering. This joker talked so fast and so squeakily, it took me all of ten minutes before I realized he was trying to sell himself, too. Told him how it was kinda novel having a Mickey Mouse operation actually headed by Mickey Mouse. But what I really wanted to say was: Jesus, if you like sleeping with ugly men, then the casino market is definitely the place to be.

About then my cell rang. It was Muffy.

“You still on that island?” was her opener.
“You still on that medication?” I replied.
“You total, total witch!”
“Poof! You’re an asshole.”
“Look, I’m calling about our mother. You know, the one that suffers from insanity.”
“Your mother,” I corrected. “And, let’s be blunt, she enjoys every frickin’ minute of it. What’s your point?”

So the pampered Akron steel tycoon’s poppet explained that due to a virulent outbreak of flesh-eating bugs, the Lake Erie Facility for the Terminally Bewildered was having to close and discharge all its 3,852 loonies into the community.

“She just cannot come and live with me and Theodore. Our wilderness lodge is so big, she might get lost and starve to death. So she’s going to have to stay with you.”

“What! When?” I demanded.

There was a pause. No doubt, the Muffster was doing some remedial math.

“By my reckoning, she’s already docked and is going through quarantine.”

Forget icy London, diary. Hearing that the USS Invincible was coming to the Isle of Man was like feeling Hell freezing over…