{"id":43675,"date":"2024-04-14T18:20:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-14T22:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/?p=43675"},"modified":"2024-04-08T12:24:04","modified_gmt":"2024-04-08T16:24:04","slug":"a-winner-or-a-whiner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/a-winner-or-a-whiner\/","title":{"rendered":"A WINNER OR A WHINER?\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Penny For Your Thoughts<\/strong> By: Nancy Whitaker\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We all have funny stories to tell either about ourselves or someone else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of my funniest memories was in the middle of the 2000s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My husband and I decided to go to Atlantic City to try our luck with those greedy machines at the casinos. We wanted to have fun plus maybe hit a few dollars. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The day after we arrived, we went to a big casino and we didn\u2019t have much luck. I am not a gambler, but I got busy putting $ bills into a machine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hubby said, \u201cYou better stop now you are spending way too much money.\u201d Well I just had to have one last pull on that machine and all of a sudden, lights started flashing, bells were ringing and I was scared that I broke that one arm bandit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, I was so shocked because I had not hurt the machine but I was the winner of $700. The attendants came and gave me my winnings in cash and took my picture. People were gathered around me and they all knew I was a winner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This totally scared me as I thought I would get robbed. I grabbed hubby\u2019s arm and told him, \u201cI am going to the hotel and stay because everyone knows I won money and I don\u2019t want to get mugged.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well we went back to the hotel, I locked the door, and sat there clenching my winnings. After sitting 24 hours in the hotel watching my  money luckily our flight was to leave late that afternoon. We got on the airplane and sticking my sum of money in my shoe, we settled down for our trip home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ahhh. a nice relaxing flight. Well\u2026 no. All of a sudden the plane started rocking around and I was sitting by the window,  I saw lightening flashing and yes I heard that roar which was no doubt thunder. Of course I got upset and started hyperventilating, got pale and started to holler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A stewardess came over to me and told me to switch places with hubby so I could not see the lightning. They then handed me something to drink saying \u201cThis will help you calm down.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started praying out loud, \u201cLord please don\u2019t let this plane crash. I would like to get home and spend my money.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well we could not land in Fort Wayne because of the storm so the pilot just kept flying around here and there. It was close to 2 am before we got back home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next day I did give my Mama $70 to give to her church as my tithe money. I wasn\u2019t at church, but my mom took that $70, gave it to the preacher and announced, \u201cThis is kind of dirty money because my daughter won it gambling\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well like I said I am not a big gambler, but I did make it home with my money,  locked all the doors and windows and sat up the rest of the night counting my winnings till I could get to the bank. What a strange scary night, but looking back it was worth it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have you ever won  money from a casino or a lottery ticket? Have you ever been in an airplane during a storm? Let me know your story and I will give you a Penny for Your Thoughts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Penny For Your Thoughts By: Nancy Whitaker\u00a0 We all have funny stories to tell either about ourselves or someone else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":33745,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,12771],"tags":[21876,12838,12839],"class_list":["post-43675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-pennies-for-your-thoughts","tag-a-winner-or-a-whiner","tag-nancy-whitaker","tag-penny-for-your-thoughts"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Nancy-Whitaker.jpg?fit=318%2C324&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2YQd9-bmr","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-25 23:08:13","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43675"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43676,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43675\/revisions\/43676"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}