I never thought I'd say this, but I miss small talk.
Two weeks into the winter lockdown, my brain started melting. Not metaphorically. I mean actually turning into gray soup inside my skull. My girlfriend, Hanna, was working remote in the bedroom. My roommate, Tim, had moved back to his parents' place. And I was alone in our shared living room, talking to a spider plant named Kevin.
That's not a joke. I named the spider plant Kevin. We had conversations. Kevin was a terrible listener.
I'm a bartender. Or I was. The bar shut down in November, reopened for a week in December, then shut down again. No shifts, no tips, no reason to put on real pants. Just me, Kevin, and an endless scroll of depressing news articles.
One night, I couldn't take it anymore. I'd watched every movie. Played every video game. Mastered three different ramen recipes. I needed something that felt like risk. Like standing behind the bar during a Friday rush, trying to remember six orders at once, adrenaline pumping through my veins like rocket fuel.
I typed something random into the search bar. I don't even remember what. Something about cards, probably. My brain was half-frozen.
A bunch of links came up. Most looked sketchy. Pop-ups, broken English, promises that screamed too loud. But one was quiet. Just a simple domain name and a description that said "live dealers, instant play."
I clicked. Nothing happened. The page wouldn't load. Probably blocked. Germany has rules about this stuff. Strict ones. I was about to give up when I noticed a tiny thread on a forum—someone had posted an alternate address. A workaround.
I copied it. Pasted it. Hit enter.
The site loaded in under a second. Clean interface. Black and gold. A button that said "Deposit" in calm, friendly letters. No flashing. No screaming. Just a quiet invitation.
I put in forty euros. That was my "I'm losing my mind" budget. Money I would have spent on bar snacks and bad beer if the world hadn't ended.
I started with roulette. Simple. Pick a color, watch the wheel spin, feel something. I bet five on red. Lost. Five on black. Won. Five on red again. Won. My balance bounced around like a pinball.
It wasn't about the money. It was about the motion. The tiny thrill of not knowing what happens next. When your entire life has become predictable—wake up, check news, eat ramen, talk to plant—even a five-euro loss feels like an event.
After twenty minutes, I was up to sixty euros. Nothing huge. But my heart was beating faster than it had in weeks. I switched to blackjack. Found a dealer named Fatima. She had kind eyes and quick hands and she shuffled cards like she was playing a piano.
I bet ten. Lost. Bet ten. Won. Bet twenty. Won again. My balance hit ninety euros.
Then I remembered the technical part. The address I'd used wasn't the main one. That one was blocked. This was a mirror—a duplicate that existed specifically to get around the restrictions. It was a Vavada alternate domain Germany (https://vavada.software/en-de/), and it worked like a charm. No VPN. No hassle. Just a different door to the same room.
I bet thirty euros. Fatima showed a five. I had a nine and a two. Eleven. I doubled down. Sixty euros on the table. She dealt me a queen. Twenty-one. She flipped her second card—a king. Fifteen. She drew a nine. Twenty-four. Bust.
I won sixty euros. Balance: one hundred fifty.
I sat back on my couch. Kevin the spider plant swayed slightly in the draft. I swear he looked impressed.
I should have cashed out. Everyone knows that. But lockdown brain is a different kind of stupid. The kind that says "you've been inside for fourteen days, go big or go crazy."
I bet fifty on a single hand. Lost. Bet the remaining hundred. Won it back plus fifty. Balance: two hundred.
My hands were sweating. The kind of sweat you get when you're holding a tray of twelve full pints and someone bumps your elbow. Pure, stupid adrenaline.
I took a breath. I looked at Kevin. "What do you think?" Kevin said nothing. Typical.
I cashed out two hundred euros. Exactly. Not a cent more. The withdrawal hit my bank account in eleven minutes. I stared at the notification like it was written in a foreign language.
I didn't buy anything sensible. No savings. No bills. I ordered a ridiculously expensive pizza—the kind with truffle oil and prosciutto—and a bottle of whiskey that cost more than my weekly grocery budget. I ate the whole pizza in one sitting. Drank three fingers of whiskey. Fell asleep on the couch with Kevin watching over me.
Hanna found me the next morning. She laughed so hard she almost cried.
"Did you win the lottery?" she asked.
"Something like that," I said.
I didn't explain. How could I? Hey babe, I got bored during the pandemic and accidentally turned forty euros into two hundred on a blackjack table run by a woman named Fatima. It sounded insane. It was insane.
But here's the thing. That night broke something loose in me. Not a gambling habit. A paralysis. For two weeks, I'd been stuck. Frozen. Waiting for the world to restart. And then I did one reckless, pointless, glorious thing, and suddenly the ice cracked.
The bar reopened last month. Not full hours, but enough. I'm back behind the counter, making drinks, lying to customers about how happy I am to see them. It's noisy. It's exhausting. It's perfect.
I still play sometimes. Once a week, maybe. Never more than thirty euros. And I always use the same door—the Vavada alternate domain Germany that saved me from talking to houseplants for the rest of my life.
Kevin is still on the windowsill. He's grown three new leaves. I like to think it's because the vibe in the apartment got better.
Or maybe he's just happy I stopped narrating his every move.
Either way, I'll take it.
The pizza was terrible, by the way. Truffle oil is a scam. But the whiskey? The whiskey was excellent. And the feeling of winning something—anything—when the whole world felt like a loss?
You can't put a price on that.
Actually, you can. Two hundred euros, apparently. Best money I never earned.