Where: The Riveria

Time: about 1:00 A.M. or so on Friday night returning from the Poker room to the elevator.

Background: I was born in upstate New York but spent a lot of time in the city. Always thought myself as being street smart but being out of the city for 50 years mellowed me out and I had my awareness waned. In any case, here is what happened.

I was walking back to my room (alone.) I was very tired and totally oblivious to my surroundings as I was arranging my wad of cash. The cash consisted of (20) $1.00 bills, (8) $5.00 bills, and a few tens and twenties (appriximately $150.00 or so)--all winnings from the poker room which I had planned to use to make change on the convention floor the next day.

So to make a short story even longer, this "old guy" about 60 or so with a Slovic or Russian accent acting drunk, bumps into me a few times, then follows me into the elevator--the last moment tries to get out and of course I'm helping him by spreading the doors open so he can squeeze out and immediately noticed my "wad" gone. Needless to say, by the time I was able to return to the bottom floor, he was gone. Security gave me there condolences and it was all over.

The lemonade part of this whole experience and why I can laugh at it is because all the guy got was the wad of chunk change wrapped around a rubber band and he didn't get into the other side of my pants pockets pocket which contained 2 other wads and wallet which amounted to a medium low 5 digit amount of money that would supported him for 2 years.