"Things are good all over"

Tom is a regular at the Hilton who, as far as I can tell, is a decent enough fellow, but I dread getting stuck at a table with him, because virtually all he does is complain about what bad cards he's getting. And I mean constantly. He doesn't talk about sports or other players or the weather or poker strategy or his family or politics--he only opens his mouth to gripe about getting dealt bad cards.

Oh wait--there is one exception. This monologue is occasionally punctuated by complaining about how the rare good starting hand he receives gets outdrawn. That's how awful his constant moaning is: a bad-beat story is actually a welcome reprieve from the stream of ordinary gripes. It's not just like fingernails on a chalkboard; it's as if somebody had invented a machine that relentlessly scrapes synthetic, never-wearing-out fingernails across a chalkboard 24 hours a day, with a constancy that no human could hope to match. He is the Energizer Bunny of whining. If Mike Matusow is the John Henry of poker complaining, Tom is the steam hammer that runs poor John Henry to his death.

Last week, though, he actually made me laugh out loud for the first time, with a line that almost--almost, mind you--made me want to forgive him his incessant, drive-me-up-the-wall diatribes.

He was at the next table over. One of his friends, sitting at my table, hit four of a kind and won a high-hand jackpot. He leaned back in his chair, got Tom's attention, and told him the good news.

Tom replied, "Oh yeah? Well, things are good all over. Half an hour ago, I almost hit a pair."


Ah, if only his sense of humor showed through the river of griping a bit more often....