Poker Night

Its funny how people can pigeonhole you by what you do for a living or what your interests are. For years whenever I went to a function or a party with my significant other people after being introduced would always get around to asking what I do for a living. I know that they are just trying to make conversation but people have a tendency to try and put you in some sort of slot by what you do. If you say you are a doctor or lawyer they think one thing, if you say for instance that you work for Microsoft they might make other assumptions about you. For years I worked for a major grocery retailer which in itself is not a very interesting job to talk about. Sometimes when I was at these functions people would know or recognize me and say aren't you that guy who runs marathons? Or I saw you out running the other day. Then the shift would be on not what I did for a living but what I did for fun. People would then ask me questions about running, ask my advice on injuries they had or what kind of training they needed to do to try and run a marathon. So then instead of being the "grocery guy" I became the "running guy". I remember one lady even calling me that.

The difference was when I was in a social function with all runners. I didn't matter what we did for a living. Over the years I ran with a heart specialist, a female family doctor, a anesthesiologist, numerous teachers, nurses, office workers you name the profession I probably ran with them. We never talked about what we did for a living. We would talk about our next race, our newest running shoe or if it wasn't about running we would talk about our kids. We were all the same. We were all just runners.

Poker is like that too. When you sit down at a poker table you have no idea what anybody does for a living and it really doesn't matter. I regularly play a live game 3 times a week and except for a couple people I have no idea what most of the people do for a living. I know most of their names and and how they play but ask me where they work and I haven't a clue and I like that. Is the Harvard grad going to be a better poker player than the high school dropout. Maybe, Maybe not. Just like in running it's a level playing field. We are all just poker players.

I watched a movie last night called Poker Night. This is a 2007 release starring Dylan Trowbridge and Scott Wickware . (Who?). Yea I had never heard of either actor before either. That should have tipped me off but sometimes these obscure movies can be good. The premise behind the movie is that the winner of a weekly poker game gets a prize plus money. This time the prize is spending time with a beautiful escort. Who thinks these things up?? I should have known this was going to be bad but with Poker in the title I thought I would watch it anyways. It was just plain awful. I am trying to think of one redeeming good thing about this movie and honestly can't think of any. Its 90 minutes of my life I wish I could have back.