It started in 1989. In a run-down past the prime it never really had slots hall in Atlantic City NJ. David was down to his last quarter. Having sold his car, and all clothes but what he was wearing, he was done. He took that last quarter, and approached a slot machine that seemed to call him...taunting perhaps, or maybe the sirens for once were not calling a man to his doom.
Holding that all important last quarter, like a talisman against all that seemed to conspire against him, he walked toward that one armed maiden. As he approached te slot, the coin slipped from his hands, and into in the dim, dark recesses between machines. He fell to the ground, hoping it hadn't rolled to far in. In the darkness between machines, he couldn't find his coin.
An old man, perhaps not that old, but aged by the menthol 120's he was smoking between pulls off his straight whisky pulled out a small flashlight (incan mimimag if you must know), and started helping David look for his coin. Nope...not there,...what about there....and OH NO! The dim, artifact laden beam starts to fail....cheap batteries, power hungry bulb....and as the last bit of light flickers and dies, it gives JUST enough beam to catch a glimmer off the edge of his coin.
Thanking the old man, David placed the coin in the slot...silently making a deal with the Gods, the devil, the almightly forces that live in and control gambling apparatuses (disclaimer: The NJ gaming commission denies the involvement of any non-humans in determinning the outcome of slot play)....if this one, just this one...pays off, he'll never gamble again, and listen carefully to the needs of flashaholics everywhere, and design a better flashlight that will be brighter, smaller, longer lasting, better made, and yet just as or more affordable than most of the competition.
7....7.....7.....7.....out came the progressive jackpot.....more than enough to get him back on his feet, and up and running. He came to be known to us all as 7777, and he learned all he could about flashlights and flashaholism. The rest, my dear friends....is history (or, completely made up like the rest of this drivel....)
I need to get more sleep I think.