STRANGER THAN FICTION: TAKING A GAMBLE ON A TRIP TO MISSISSIPPI

Who needs skill and concentration when you've got slot machines?

Here's another one from the deep, dark confessions vault.

I've gambled. More than once.

No, I'm not spending every Thursday standing before anonymous strangers going, "My name is Heidi, and I've got a bad case of slot-machine elbow." But I recently enjoyed a trip to Biloxi, Miss., which is the Gulf Coast's somewhat weak replica of Las Vegas.

It was a big jump for me, sliding that first quarter into a one-armed bandit, as they call 'em. In my parents' house, buying a raffle ticket to benefit Little League constituted a near-unforgivable sin. Never mind sliding a $1 bill and six lottery numbers to a convenience store clerk.

But the power of the press got to me. Yes, my fellow journalists led me to gamble. They conducted a seminar last year at a St. Louis hotel, where reserving a room got you a ticket for the Casino Queen and a $10 chip.

My first instinct was to take my chip, cash it in and buy $10 worth of Dunkin' Donuts.

Gambling is wrong, I told myself. Yeah, they tell you the money goes to educate kids, but who really gets the money? Merv Griffin, that's who -- yes, you uninformed souls. Merv Griffin is a casino owner. And what did his talk show ever do for the American public but open the way for the likes of Jerry Springer?

But then I thought about the other ways I've thrown away $10 and more on legitimate "gambles." Like the time I bought the $40 skin-care system guaranteed to suck up excess oil. It broke me out so bad, my face looked like a gravel road in Scott County.

Then there was the time I gambled on the $20 floral stretch pants, even after having seen similar stretch pants on other women of size.

"They look great on you!" the sales clerk said. "So slimming!"

After seeing me in them, my mother told me I looked like someone had wallpapered my butt.

So I got $10 in quarters, blew them in about a half-hour and went back to the hotel telling myself I'd helped educate America's young people. I, too, was a little more educated and didn't plan to go gambling again anytime soon.

But The Other Half and I made a friend down here who can't resist the bright lights of Biloxi, only two short hours from Pensacola, Fla.

He talked us into going there Saturday night.

Mr. Half and I set down some rules. Twenty dollars to spend, not a penny more. No going to the ATM, no using credit cards and no pawning heirloom jewelry. Our goal was to place ourselves in front of the roaming cocktail waitress so much that we'd eventually regain our $20 in adult beverages.

It went just as we planned, although the cocktail waitress must have wondered why we kept shifting to the row of slot machines she was working.

The people in the casino were interesting. There was a very large woman dressed head-to-toe in sequins playing three slot machines in sequence. She had piles of quarters so high in all of them that she kept having to spread them out to make room.

There was an older man, unencumbered by dentures (although he needed them) who hit a $1,000 jackpot. "Finally broke even!" he shouted, smiling at the onlookers.

No such luck for Mr. Half and me. Our friend lost $30 playing blackjack but figures he recouped that in beverages. Feeling a little jealous of the old man, we headed out for the only place in Biloxi we could be sure we'd leave happy.

After all, everyone's a winner at the 24-hour International House of Pancakes.

~Heidi Nieland is a former staff writer for the Southeast Missourian who resides in Pensacola, Fla.