I didn\u2019t remind her that the stress from worrying wouldn\u2019t help her healing process anyway. Had I mentioned this to Bonnie at that particular moment, she would have likely gotten even more upset — and this time her anger might have been directed at me.<\/p>\n
So we went back and bought another pack. As we left the pharmacy, Bonnie wanted to retrace her steps one more time seeing if we could find the black bag.<\/p>\n
As it happened, one of the security guards on the way back to the ship asked what she was looking for and sure enough, he had her pills and gave them to her. I tried to tip him a dollar and he waved it off.<\/p>\n
This was quite remarkable to us. From about 2010 to 2013, cruise ships refused to stop at this city because of the crimes against tourists. For the health of the city, you now see lots and lots of armed military guards all over the city. We had taken the bare minimum of cash with us and left watches and jewelry locked up on the ship. We were not<\/em> expecting to run into a Good Samaritan — and were pleasantly surprised when we did.<\/p>\n Now the issue was what to do with the extra box of medicine? I didn\u2019t know the policy of the pharmacy about returns, but I suggested keeping it. \u201cYou\u2019ll use it eventually,\u201d I told her, \u201cand even if you can get it back home for maybe $1.50 when you buy in quantity, it\u2019s not worth the hassle of trying to talk them into something that may or may not be against their policy.\u201d<\/p>\n Something else happened that could be called similar, but I see a difference. Our cruise was courtesy of Penn National — or more specifically M Resort. Included on our package was $50 credit for food or beverage only (thank you very much!)<\/p>\n Early in the cruise I went to the front desk and asked them a hypothetical. If I charged a $40 bottle of wine, with a forced 18% gratuity of $7.20 and that was my only charge, would the voucher pick up $40 and I was responsible for the gratuity, or would the voucher pick up the whole $47.20? I could live with it either way but I\u2019ve had enough experience with different ways casinos handle such things that I wanted to check up front. I was told the voucher would cover the entire $47.20.<\/p>\n Armed with this information, I ordered a $42 bottle of wine, which comes out to $49.56 with gratuity. (Okay. It was a $15 bottle of wine at Lee\u2019s Discount Liquor Store, but cruise ship prices are inflated a bit.) When our final bill was delivered to our stateroom at 4:00 a.m. on the morning of departure, the $49.56 charge was still there. So I went to the front desk with my voucher and everything was handled eventually, although it did require speaking to two different people. Had I not gone to the desk, who knows if the charge would have come off?<\/p>\n Bonnie asked me what the difference was between me going to the front desk and \u201cfighting\u201d for the $49.56 and her being upset about the \u201clost\u201d $3 worth of Motrin?<\/p>\n To me the difference was that I wasn\u2019t upset or out of control. It was a simple matter of checking — and then doing whatever was appropriate. I intentionally set my alarm a half hour early on the last day to leave time for this \u201cif necessary.\u201d (There were two other items I wanted to verify on the bill — but they were done appropriately.) I didn\u2019t see this as a major problem. Just a matter of something that needed to be tended to.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s switch to gambling. We all have imperfect things happen to us from time to time. Maybe we accidentally played a few hands on a worse pay schedule than we intended to. Maybe all four of the \u201cgood machines\u201d we thought were best to play were full and we needed to play second-best or go home. Maybe the machine ran out of tickets just as we got there and we had to \u201cwaste\u201d five minutes until it was fixed. Whatever.<\/p>\n There are people who can shrug that off and there are others who get really <\/em>upset. Years ago, we had an expression, \u201cDon\u2019t sweat the small sh*t,\u201d although the folks who used that expression often had marijuana to help them through it. (Bonnie has never used marijuana in her life and hasn\u2019t thought it a good idea for anyone else to use it either.\u00a0 Recently, however, she has considered trying the medical variety for her back pain. I\u2019m always a bit amused when people who say \u201cnever\u201d end up in a personal circumstance that turns that \u201cnever\u201d into \u201cmaybe.\u201d It\u2019s more amusing, of course, when it happens to somebody else rather than ourselves.)<\/p>\n Getting angry at little things causes undue stress, including high blood pressure and various other real medical problems. Finding ways to not do that makes your life longer and more pleasant. Exercise helps. Yoga, meditation, and other techniques work. For some, religion and\/or some type of self-help process also is useful.<\/p>\n In the casino — and out.<\/p>\n As I mentioned last week, Bonnie and I recently cruised the Mexican Riviera. One purpose of the trip was so that Bonnie could rest. She had a fall not so long ago, straining some muscles and tendons in her back, and the doctors have said the best thing for her is to rest and to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[3,15],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Facebook\"](\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/social\/regular\/96x96\/facebook.png\" "\\"Follow")
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