You may remember Ann Broom from a prior column. She's the lady whom my sweetie introduced to online poker, the result being that she bolted herself in her room for six months, subsisting entirely on pancakes, the only thing her husband, Jerry, could fit under the door, and losing about $145,000 while playing 5¢-10¢ games on six screens simultaneously. After Jerry pleaded for our help, we finally enticed her out of the room on a ruse and forced her to attend "Internet Anonymous" support-group meetings.
Recently, I was wondering how she was doing, so I phoned Jerry for an update.
"The support group didn't help any," he sighed. "All they did was talk about online poker strategy, rake-back deals, and the best sites to play on. She kept getting worse and worse. After she ballooned up to about 200 pounds from all those pancakes and cleaned out my bank account, I had to take drastic measures."
"What did you do, cut off her money?"
"I didn't have any money left to cut off, thanks to Barbara," he raged. "So I slipped some sleeping powder into her pancakes and had her hauled off to a rehab center for addicts."
"Which one, the Betty Ford Clinic?"
"No, the Frist Rehabilitation Internet Gaming Indoctrination Teaching center; or, 'Frig it,' for short."
I shuddered. If that weasel Bill Frist was unprincipled and fanatical enough to sneak an anti-Internet gaming bill through by tacking it onto a port security bill, what would he do to online players once he got them into his clutches?
"My heart goes out to both of you," I said with a catch in my throat. "I will go down there immediately to see what I can do for poor Ann."
I really didn't give a damn about that wacko. It wasn't my money she was blowing. But I thought I might get some horror stories to scare Barbara away from the Internet. At the very least, I figured I should be able to get a column out of the visit, so it wouldn't be a total waste of time.
The Frist Rehabilitation Center, it turned out, was located inside an Army base. That guy really means business, I thought. I didn't appreciate how much until I discovered that the center was surrounded by an electrified barbed-wire fence with machine-gun equipped soldiers stationed in watchtowers. Searchlights played back and forth across the grounds, illuminating packs of vicious Dobermans eagerly looking for someone to sink their fangs into. I couldn't figure out how Frist could get funding for a place like this, but later learned he slipped through appropriations for it by appending it onto a bill to fund bird flu research. It figured.
After showing the guard at the gate six different IDs and being strip-searched for computers or any other online devices, Internet poker books, or copies of
Card Player magazine, I was finally allowed to enter.
I was led to the outside of Ann's room (cell would be a more apt description) and peered at her through a small opening. It was a scene out of a Frankenstein movie. She was lying on a cot, immobilized by heavy black straps, staring blankly at the ceiling. Her head was shaven, and wires from some sort of electrical device were connected to bolts in her neck. I wondered what the device was; the answer soon came. The room filled with showering sparks as Ann's body glowed eerily and arched upward, halfway to the ceiling. It was an electroshock machine, I realized. At the same moment, a recorded message began blaring: "Thou shalt not play poker on the Internet. Thou shalt not play poker on the Internet. Thou shalt …"
Ann moaned and turned her head toward me. "Max," she pleaded piteously. "Help me, please help me."
"I will, Ann, I will," I promised her. "I will break this door down and release you from that infernal machine."
"Oh, I don't care about that," Ann shrugged. "But there's a $500-guaranteed tournament coming up in a few hours on PikerPoker. Can you call Jerry? Tell him to please sneak my computer in here and get me on the Internet."
"Ann, there's a pack of wild dogs out there. If Jerry tried to sneak in anything, they'd eat him alive."
"Well, that's his problem. My computer is more important, don't you see?"
I tried to change the subject. "Nice place you have here, Ann. How's the food?"
"Well, they won't give me pancakes, and …" - at this point she let out a shriek as bolts of electricity hit her again - "… and it's hard to sleep when they shock you every 30 minutes. But the real torture is not being able to play online. Are you sure you don't have a computer with you?"
"A computer? I couldn't sneak a harmonica into this place. Tell me, you poor thing," I said, trying to get more information for a column, "what else are they doing to you - I mean, for you - here?"
"Well, they're supposed to send a counselor down to help me with my addiction," she replied.
Just then, a slovenly dressed older man with a black mustache and hair badly in need of trimming walked up, escorted by a guard. It was none other than Dr. Wolfgang Krock, the eminent poker psychologist. "In there, Doc," the guard said, opening the door and pointing the way for the somewhat bewildered counselor.
"I am Dr. Volfgang Krock, der eminent poker psychologist," he introduced himself to the startled Ann. "I am here to break you of der evil thing you are doing by playing der online poker. But I have vun question to ask first."
"What's that?"
"Vot der hell iss der online poker, anyvay?"
"Well," Ann said cagily, "get a computer down here and I'll show you."
One was soon set up, and Ann began demonstrating all the addictive features. It wasn't long before Krock was hooked. He began playing Omaha eight-or-better, and soon was loudly cursing all his bad beats and typing insults and obscenities into the chat box.
Still strapped to her cot, Ann thrashed around violently. "Let me play, let me play," she begged.
"Vun more hand, vun more hand, chust till I get even," Krock replied, shoving her cot away with his foot.
The two made such a ruckus that they set off the other inmates, who began beating on their doors and yelling for their own laptops. Fire hoses were brought in to subdue the rioters, and then Krock was dragged out of Ann's cubicle, stubbornly refusing to release his grip on the computer.
Having gotten enough information for a dozen columns, and unwilling to find out what happened next, I ran off and left the building.
Well, Ann is still in rehab. As far as I know, nothing much has changed, except that after the riots, they doubled the voltage on her electroshock machine. Go visit her if you'd like. You won't be able to bring in a computer, but she'll settle for a few pancakes.
