...And then I played Blackjack with DeAngelo Williams

It's Superbowl time here in New Orleans. Which of course means, celebrities, news analysts, and football players.  Everywhere.  Well last night I had a run in with one such football player.


Two of my friends and I heard that Snoop Dogg was playing at Harrah's casino. Having not gotten an invite to the star-studded Lil Wayne concert, this seemed like a second best alternative. And we thought, "three girls (one wearing jeans and converse, one wearing jeans and riding boots, and one wearing a work dress and a cardigan) will surely get into a Snoop Dogg Concert for free."

WRONG. I guess with any celebrity/athlete stocked event, you also get: groupies. And boy, are the groupies in New Orleans a "well" dressed crew.  We're talking entire ensembles of leopard skin print spandex.  These women were literally wearing things I would only wear underneath my work dresses. At one point I was tempted to go up to one of the groupies and ask, "Spanx for Macys? I have that outfit too, but in black."

Anyways, after circling the "Masquerade" Club at Harrah's for 30 minutes hoping that someone would notice the 3 awkward girls in jeans and work dresses lingering and say, "now THOSE are some fly honeys we need to invite in to see Snoop for free," we realized we were not t"get into concerts for free" sorts of girls. So I told my friends that I was going to play some blackjack.

Little known fact: I'm pretty good at playing blackjack.  I would say I am more than above average at it. When I play, I oftentimes pretend like I don't know what I am doing. I find this disarms the men at my blackjack table and makes them on my team (and, sometimes, give me chips). I do this by cheering and raising my hands in the air when I win, and also saying, "Yahtzee!" I also make the old men at the table think its their idea for me to either split or double down by saying, "two kings!! I wish I had those as two separate hands because he's got one of those weird middle numbers." And then I win all the money and walk away, and people think they helped a girl win some spending cash, and no one is the wiser. 

Okay, back to the story. Anyway, as my friends were standing around chatting, I was silently scoping out the tables to find out which tables were prime, and which tables were flops.  As I was doing this, I notice a table where there is a large entourage standing behind a guy playing at a table by himself. It was Carolina Panthers running back DeAngelo Williams.  I pull my friends and we walk over there.

I approach the table and have a seat.  DeAngelo has a very large pile of chips in front of him, and a very large group of unfamous men standing behind him.  He looks at me with a confused expression, then nods his head and says, "oh okay. I see you." The cards are dealt.

We begin to exchange small talk. He asks me what my name is, he asks my friends what their names are, what we do, etc. He makes a comment about how he always needs lawyers around because he and his friends "can get into a lot of trouble."

At this point I decide to (metaphorically) lay my cards out on the table. "Listen, I am not going to pretend like I don't know who you are. I'm a saints fan, so of course I know who DeAngelo Williams is. Your team, unfortunately, swept us. And, by some weird numerical rule of tie-breaking, also beat us in the NFC South Rankings. But I've decided not to hold that against you." DeAngelo looks at me sort of weirdly, and I think my speech will probably be the last words exchanged in this interaction. THANKFULLY, a small guy standing in the Entourage chimes up, "YEAH WE SWEPT Y'ALL! AND! I tackled Darren Sproles."  The guy is MAYBE 5'9 at best, and MAYBE 160lbs. So I ask, "Pray-tell, what position do you play?" He proudly chirps, "running back!" I laugh to myself and nod my head and say, "ah special teams. That, like, half counts." Then there is more silence as I keep hammering more nails into the coffin. Trying to salvage the situation though, I yell out, "But hey, at least the Falcons aren't here this weekend AMIRIGHT????" And they both yell out, "HELL YEAH!" and we all give each other high fives.

As the game progresses, I notice that DeAngelo is....not that great at blackjack. Now, I realize that not all of my readers are as degenerate a gambler as I am, so I won't go through every single one of his bad moves. I kept myself pretty silent while he made these terrible moves, because, its not my money. But when DeAngelo decided to SPLIT 6s WHEN THE DEALER WAS SHOWING A FACE CARD, I couldn't help myself.  In a tourrets like moment, I yelled out, "WHAT THE F*CK ARE YOU DOING. THAT MOVE IS THE EQUIVALENT OF INVESTING IN A BEEPER COMPANY." The whole Entourage turns to me. One especially intimidating looking member of the Entourage gives me a death glare. My friends are standing so far away from me they are practically sitting on top of a slot machine.  DeAngelo looks at the table and says, "Listen to Coach over here." Which ends the stand-off and the game progresses.

DeAngelo then proceeds to ask me if my friends and I are going to the Snoop Dog Concert. I say, "Well, we don't have tickets, so we weren't planning on it." We then begin to engage in the following conversation.

DW: You a big Snoop Dog fan?
LL: Hells to the yes. Straight out of Compton.
DW: You know what Compton is?"
LL: Yeah, its a high crime area in California. I read about it in some literature in my criminal procedure class.
DW: Do you even know a Snoop Dog song?
LL: Duh! Yes I do
DW: Name me one right now that isn't California Love.
LL: (wracking her brain for the OTHER Snoop Dog song title she knows)
DW: See, you can't even name a song. You're not a fan.
LL: (finally remembering the song her friend KBG used to play in the car on the ride to school in high school) GIN AND JUICE.

Now, before I tell you what I did next I need to set the scene for you. I'm at a blackjack table. There are no other women around right now except for my two friends who are scooting so far away from me due to embarrassment that they are practically sitting in the laps of the men at the next table. DeAngelo Williams in there with an entourage of, like, 6 very large African american men.  And then there I am, wearing jeans, a sweater shirt, black converse, and pearl earrings.

LL: You know, that song, (and now I start singing), "Rolling down the street smoking endo, sipping on gin and juice. (now getting a very deep voice), Laid back (now rapping in a robot voice) with my mind on my money and my money on my mind." That's Snoop Dog, right?

The entire table erupts into hysterical laughter. The man who allegedly tackled Darren Sproles (once) yells out, "OH MY GOD I'M DYING THIS WHITE GIRL JUST SANG GIN AND JUICE." I look sort of puzzled and frantically ask, "Wait, is that not Snoop Dogg? Is that not a snoop dogg song?" And DeAngelo says, "No, that's a snoop dogg song alright" as he is slapping his thigh with laughter at my rendition of Gin and Juice. He then asks me why I am not going to the Snoop Dog Concert if I'm clearly such a fan of his work, and I reiterate "I told you already, we don't have tickets!!" Then DeAngelo says the words every uncommon working woman wants to hear, "Yall can come with us."

GAME ON. I tell my friends we have to wait this situation out because DeAngelo Williams has promised we could get into the Snoop Dog concert with him. So we continue to stand at the table.

The following are things I learned while listening to DeAngelo and his Entourage converse:

• All football players and their entourage have things they call "Bat Phones."  The Bat phone is a backup cell phone that they have for when their primary cell phone's battery dies. Why not just bring a charger with you...seems cheaper. But nevermind that.  I ask them, "Oh, is it like a burner phone? Like from the Wire?" But then realize that might be racist.
• DeAngelo is not willing to take a penny less than what is owed to him on a contract, and does not want to renegotiate. He said this quite a lot and wanted to make sure we all knew that. He said he'd rather play for another team than take a pay cut. 
• One cagey football player I did not recognize nearly lost his sh*t when some Saints fan took a video of him playing blackjack. "MAN I CAN'T HAVE PEOPLE KNOW I'M GAMBLING." I say, "It's not illegal, I think you're fine?" He ignored me and then tried to get one of his entourage to get the guy to delete the video. Like a good Saints fan, the guy didn't though. 
• When a famous person wants to hit on a girl, he himself does not make the first introduction. He turns to his less attractive friend (and member of the entourage) and says, "she looks nice" and then the less attractive friend goes over and talks to the girl. I realized this is not too far off from what some of my friends and I do when we want to go up and talk to a group of guys. I am usually sent over and say something like, "Who over here likes to play scrabble!" then my friends come in for the kill. 
• Football players and their friends like to drink ciroc. One member of the entourage specifically asked a waitress for 9 shots of "black eyed peas" ciroc. I asked if that is vodka that tastes like black eyed peas. He didn't answer me.   A google search yields no such beverage. 

 As the time ticks away and we are NO CLOSER to the snoop dogg concert, the lady groupies begin to descend. Now, I've always thought myself the sort of girl who can get any girl to be her friend. So I start trying to chat up the groupies. And when I tell you they wouldn't even look at me as I was TALKING TO THEM, that is not an exaggeration.  The numbers female groupies start reproducing exponentially. First you have one, then five minutes later there are 3, then ten minutes later there are 9.  I overhear one member of DeAngelo's crew ask DeAngelo how many people he can get into the concert, and he looks at his chips and says, "well right now I only have enough money for 5." I count the people who have now joined the possee. There are 19 people there. Much like the Titanic, there are not enough lifeboats to get everyone in the doors.  I motion to my friends and we immediately leave, hop in a cab, and head home.