It took only two phone calls to find friends willing to spend two days and a night in Atlantic City, even though no one I know likes gambling or admires Miss America.
I had an irresistible pitch: We'd each drop our beloved children at school on Wednesday morning and not return until it was time to pick them up after school on Thursday. I think I could have suggested a tour of shuttered steel mills in Youngstown, Ohio, and both women would have jumped in my car.
But Atlantic City, it turned out, was a perfect choice -- the antithesis of our normal lives. All day, as we mingled with the senior citizens at the slots, we felt young and chic. We were knocked back into reality that evening when the buses left and the limos arrived with the glittering cocktail dress crowd, but by then, we'd had a couple of glasses of wine and couldn't have cared less.
We talked nonstop for 22 of our 30 responsibility-free hours, strongly expressing more opinions than the Capital Gang, but without interrupting each other. We occasionally indulged in feelings of moral and intellectual superiority, ate mounds of pasta and big greasy hoagies from historic eateries, tried in vain to figure out craps, gathered tips on Sik Bo from Korean men at the tables, and threw away quarters in slot machines like they were nothing more than expired supermarket coupons.
We felt wild and free, and the time flew. In fact, that night on the casino floor, when Anne Veigle asked for the time, Mandy Katz glanced at her watch and said, "Oh my God, it's 11:30!" We hurried off to bed and each enjoyed the luxury of reading a book of our choosing, at our own grade level.
The day did not begin so relaxed. The hour before our rendezvous outside Mandy's house in Northwest D.C. was a microcosm of our lives as moms, and a good explanation of why a tour of steel mills might hold some appeal.
Two of Mandy's kids, we later heard, were smacking each other in the back of her van during an out-of-control game of "Punch Buggies No Punch Backs" when the third began wailing that they'd have to turn back because she didn't have an empty egg carton for art class.
For my part, I arrived at Mandy's house seething with guilt. I'd run from my home minutes before school was to start, yelling "Just take care of it" to my husband, who couldn't find a lunch box for my daughter, who was complaining that all her slacks were in the dryer and still wet.
Anne, who'd taken the Metro from Arlington to meet me at Friendship Heights, was waiting in a coffee shop nursing a headache so bad she didn't want to even review the morning activities that had induced it.
By comparison, I figured, a drive along I-95 and the Atlantic City Expressway would be a walk in the park. Besides, Anne and I arrived at Mandy's to discover she'd packed snacks. Healthy snacks, but snacks.
Anne and Mandy had never met before. But by the end of a three-hour-plus drive, each knew more about the other than I'd previously known about either of them, despite taking new-mother classes with Anne 10 years before, and spending endless nights around Mandy's kitchen table plotting reforms for a D.C. school.
The tiny residue of guilt I harbor during the drive evaporates completely seconds after parking at Trump Plaza. Mandy spots a "Child Safety Guidelines" pamphlet at the garage elevator and begins reading it aloud. "Children ages 12 and under . . . may not be left alone in hotel rooms, or left unattended in vehicles, the parking facility, or any public area," it directs. So my kid is wearing damp jeans and drinking warm milk from a paper bag. I'm thinking she could have done worse for a mother.
A mere $79 gets us a huge oceanfront room with two double beds and a roll-away. We stash our luggage -- Mandy has brought a Pretty Kitty bag-on-wheels because it's just the right size for an overnight -- and head to the casino floor.
Anne returns from the ladies' room to announce in amazement that "they're giving away quarters in the bathroom, I guess to get you started." Those quarters in the little bowls beside the wash basin? Did she notice the attendant? The one who thanks you if you leave a quarter? Whoops.
I've got $78.60 in quarters, nickels and dimes, all collected from the irritating piles my husband makes wherever he changes his pants. My purse must weigh about 50 pounds, and we take turns carrying it.
Mandy just has to register for a Trump Card. It gives her a free chance to win a sports car but is really intended for high rollers. After wins and losses, a dealer swipes the card through an electronic device that tallies the gambler's financial position. We notice while we wait that there is another sign-up option: Compulsive gamblers who've decided to quit, but don't trust themselves, can ask to be forever banned from the casino.
Sik Bo, a numbers game, doesn't look nearly as complicated as craps, and Mandy puts down a dollar and hands her Trump Card to the dealer. "Lady," he says. "It's a dollar bet." So what? Mandy wants to know. "You'd have to play 1,000 times to make it worth keeping score," he grumbles. Mandy mutters that Trump Plaza is like Donald Trump: It takes itself too seriously and has no sense of humor.
Anne and I decide now might be the time to independently test our luck. After we split up, I try to lighten my purse by feeding the slots as many coins as they will take at once. But I can't seem to get rid of the stuff.
The slots are programmed so that the casino keeps a very small percentage of the coins fed to them: In a given month, a casino may return from 85 to 101 percent of what it takes in from slots.
Of course people win, at the expense of losers. But if you have neither particularly good nor particularly bad luck, chances are you'll walk away dragging different coins, but about the same number of them.
I get in a long line to cash in my winnings and the change I haven't gambled but am tired of dragging around. Handing it to a lady with a super-fast coin counter sure beats counting out the exact number of coins, fitting them into those little paper tubes, writing your bank account number on each roll and hauling them down to the First Union on Connecticut Avenue.
Mandy returns to tell us that while she was waiting to cash in, someone had a seizure. There was a big hullabaloo: Security guards came running, and a woman who said she was a nurse argued loudly with a man who said he was a doctor about how to treat the victim.
"People just kept pulling the slots," said Mandy. "They didn't even look up." The slot players, we agreed, all get the dazed, dopey expression of a kid whose parents set no limits on Nintendo.
We watch people playing games we wouldn't dare try. The bigger the stakes, the more tense the players look, and we've come to escape tension. We try to figure out if one young woman is with her dad or her sugar daddy. We decide it must be her dad, or she wouldn't look so distraught and scared about losing the man's money at blackjack.
Only the craps players seem to be having a good time; they even say things to each other.
There are so many interesting human studies to conduct here. Like the big, burly security guards who are everywhere. Civil libertarians worried about government intruding on our privacy ought to see the hairy eyeballs these guys use to glare at you. The FAA ought to come here for its new hires. You wouldn't dare try to sneak your knitting needles through security after taking one look at these brutes.
The reflection off the gilded walls, the mirrors and the chandeliers of Trump Plaza is beginning to burn my corneas. We decide to see if the city's 12 casinos, including nine along the 4 1/2-mile boardwalk, are all similar. Not even close.
In fact, whether you like glitz or kitsch, favor polyester or silk, there's a casino tailored to your taste, assuming you don't have much.
We had chosen Trump Plaza because two other casinos adjoin it. Bally's, next door, has a loud and relaxed atmosphere, with dealers dressed in cowboy and cowgirl outfits. It's a cleaned-up model of a 19th-century Western town and includes displays of animated, life-size figures playing fiddles and piano in a hoedown.
"This is Chuck E. Cheese for adults!" Mandy says, getting it exactly right.
I win some more quarters and head to the nearest redemption center. "The Wild West is closed," the sign says. "Please go to Coyote Kate's."
Wearing our best jeans and nice leather jackets, we feel right at home -- until we go next door to Caesars. It's not glitzy like Trump, but the casino makes a serious attempt at being classy.
High overhead, blue stage lighting is trained on a rayon ceiling glittering with tiny white lights, like stars. The huge palm trees in front of the Temple Bar turn out to be fake, but the trunks are made of real bark. Likewise, the flaming torches along a balcony look so authentic you have to get very close to see that the flames are really pieces of tissue paper made to move and flicker by fans and lights. It's like the home a sensitive immigrant shoemaker would have built if he won the lottery, and it attracts a well-dressed, well-heeled crowd.
The best part of our day is spent floating around Trump's nicely heated, totally empty stainless steel pool. Most of the casino hotels have pools, but they aren't promoted and you have to seek them out. The owners, Anne notes, wouldn't want to encourage visitors to waste precious gambling time swimming.
We return to our room, which is pleasantly decorated and spacious, to dress up a little. The city is full of great restaurants, and while the casinos have a wide variety of dining options, we want to check out the nearby family-owned restaurants that get passed through generations.
I ask the front desk which of three recommended restaurants is within walking distance. It wouldn't be safe to walk to any of them, I'm told. So we take a cab to Angelo's, a family-owned Italian restaurant, to drink homemade wine and gorge on first-rate pasta. Leaving, we discover that our hotel is straight ahead, less than three blocks down a well-lighted street. We feel perfectly safe and can't decide if something bad once happened here, or the hotel desk clerk owns the cabs.
Even during the week, at least one casino has entertainment. We consider seeing Don Rickles, but decide that $35 each is too much for a trip down another generation's memory lane.
During our earlier swim, we'd agreed to return to the pool area in the morning to use the adjoining spa, with hot tubs, saunas and massage therapists. But when we awake, the sun is glittering off the Atlantic Ocean -- a natural resource that is easy to overlook.
We walk along the boardwalk, stopping to watch a one-man band. Fudge and curio shops, small restaurants and hotels fill the spaces between the casinos. The elderly, who tend to disappear at night, are back, looking for breakfast along the boardwalk, just like us. The broad beaches are empty, though. We stroll a while along the shore and calculate our winnings.
Anne is up about $2, Mandy down about $20, and I don't know, since I've mistakenly mixed up my designated gambling money with my nondesignated funds.
But the way I figure it, we've spent very little to remind our families what we do for them each day. And ourselves what they mean to us.
Details: Atlantic City
GETTING THERE: Atlantic City is about 190 miles from the District. Greyhound’s round-trip fares range from $14 to $36 round-trip, and numerous charter buses are listed with the convention bureau (see below). Amtrak (800-872-7245,
www.amtrak.com) is a bit out of step, with round-trip fares of $106 from Washington’s Union Station.
WHERE TO STAY: We were happy with our big, oceanfront room and the great pool at Trump Plaza (Boardwalk and Mississippi, 800-677-7378). At $79 a night, it was a good midweek deal. But with 8,000 rooms to chose from in Atlantic City, not including bed-and-breakfast choices, you should contact the convention bureau (below) for other options to fit a certain budget or taste.
WHERE TO EAT: Angelo’s Fairmount Tavern (2300 Fairmount Ave.) is an authentic, family-owned restaurant filled with pictures of famous diners like Frank Sinatra. Dinner entrees range from $9 for fresh pasta to $27 for filet mignon. Homemade wine is served from a spigot at a lively bar. Dock’s Oyster House (2405 Atlantic Ave.), Atlantic City’s oldest restaurant, has been owned by the same family since 1897. Fresh, locally caught fish entrees start at $18.95 during dinner hours, with prices topping out at $38.95 for lobster tails. Girasole (3108 Pacific Ave.) is an upscale Italian restaurant featuring northern and southern Italian cuisine. Dinner entrees range from $13 for pizza to $34 for chops, fish and filet mignon.
Finally, the White House Sub Shop (2301 Arctic Ave.) must not be missed. The Beatles came by in the ’60s, and since then, everyone who’s anyone has stopped to eat the giant subs on fresh rolls when they’re in Atlantic City. Half-subs start at about $4.
INFORMATION: Atlantic City Convention and Visitors Authority, 888-222-3683,
www.atlanticcitynj.com.
