“Life is a game of Poker,” he said, “and Poker isn’t always fair. Some people are born with a Royal Flush. They didn’t ask for it, a lot of times they don’t even deserve it, but they are born with a Royal Flush nonetheless. And then, some people are born with a bunch of phone numbers, not matching suits, no correlating numbers, just a whole bunch of garbage. And in this game of Life Poker, the people with the Royal Flushes have five stacks of chips; the ones with the phone numbers have one or two – if you’re lucky. They didn’t ask for that either; they probably don’t deserve it either. Beautiful thing about Poker, though, is that you get to fold, save your chips, and get a reshuffle. The idiots with the Royal Flushes aren’t stupid enough to force all the chips to the middle of the table, ‘cause someone at that table’s going to have the Ace of Spades.

“So you play the game. Get a reshuffle. Play it again. Get a reshuffle. But play it smart!” he warned me, “Save your chips. Then, when YOU get the Royal Flush, you know what you do?”

I shook my head.

“You keep playing it! Keep playing that hand until you’ve got the Royal Flush, with the Ace of Spades. Then you hog up all the chips, lay your hand down, and – poof – disappear into the night.

“But, whatever you do, don’t get frustrated and hurl across the table to punch someone in the jaw. Hard to keep your cards hidden while punching someone in the jaw. ‘Cause if you punch someone and reveal your cards, you don’t get a reshuffle… you get flat pushed out of the game. And people in this word who are hollerin’ at you and screaming all sorts of garbage about you and shoving you around, laughing are-not-worth-revealing-your-cards-over,” he stressed those last words. “YOU get that Royal Flush, then YOU laugh at THEM.”