I spent two days in the hospital after the incident with the coconut cake. That was the worst allergic reaction I've ever had. Well, then again, there was the time I went on vacation and let a man rub coconut tanning lotion all over my body even though I knew I was allergic to the stuff. The guy was really cute and when he offered to rub lotion on my back, I could not resist. I ended up being quarantined in a leaky hut for two weeks because the "doctor" thought I had some contagious deadly disease.

  Anyway, getting back to this thing with the coconut cake, I don’t know what was worse, the fact that I was stuffy, splotchy and bloated or the fact that George didn’t visit me in the hospital. It was probably better that he didn’t come because he would have seen me looking atrocious. The only time men should see me is when I’m looking frantastic.

  After I got out of the hospital, I felt the need to get away for a while. I was having a string of bad luck with men and I really needed a break. I persuaded my two sisters, Pristine and Cristine, to take a bus trip to Atlantic City with me. Though I wasn’t too thrilled with the idea of riding on a bus for two and a half hours, we didn’t have much of a choice. Pristine and Cristine don't really drive and they’re both afraid of my driving. We figured that riding on a bus would be like the old days when we rode the school bus together and acted like little maniacs in the back seat.

  On the day of the trip, I was excited. We made sure we got to the bus station early enough to get the back seat. When we were all seated, the bus driver welcomed everyone and made an announcement that there was to be no smoking on "the coach." I could tell this guy took his job a little too seriously when he referred to that rickety old bus as a "coach."

  A nutty drunk guy sat in the seat in front of us. He was a pain in the butt. As Pristine, Cristine and I talked about junior high school and some of the pranks we used to pull on each other, the drunk guy kept turning around and trying to join in on our conversation. He was totally annoying.

I finally got so fed up, I told him that if he didn’t shut up his fat mouth, I would shut it up for him. Cristine and Pristine laughed so loud that the bus driver made an announcement. He said, "You three girls in the back seat have to be quiet or I will put you off the bus!" It was just like old times.

  We quieted down a bit and continued to talk about the pranks we used to pull on each other. We talked about how we used to put live worms in each other's lunch boxes and how we used to put dog poop in each other's sneakers. We even called each other by our old nick names. Pristine was "Trickster" because she played the most devious tricks on us and Cristine was "Grudge" because she would get mad at us for what we did and refuse to speak to us for days. I was "Payback" because revenge was my specialty.

We continued to laugh about our pranks and, at one point, the drunk guy turned around and said, "If you girls don't quiet down, I am going to tell the bus driver on you." That really made me mad. Nobody threatens me and gets away with it. The guy then got up and stumbled into the bathroom, which was located right across from us.

Not long after he went in there, I smelled cigarette smoke. It was coming from the bathroom. Since that guy ticked me off, I marched up to the front of the bus and told the driver, "There is a drunk man smoking on the coach."

The driver was furious. He immediately pulled the bus over to the side of the road, whipped off his seatbelt and marched to the back of the bus. Most of the people from the front of the bus followed behind us to see what was going on. When we reached the bathroom, the driver took a key ring off his belt, opened the door without knocking and everyone on the bus cracked up laughing at the sight in the bathroom.

That jerk was sitting on the toilet, with his pants down around his ankles, looking at a dirty magazine. He was doing something to a certain part of his body that I will leave to your imagination.

After the bus driver yelled at the guy about smoking on the "coach", the driver slammed the bathroom door shut and marched back to the front of the bus. Once the passengers were back in their seats, the bus was moving again. About two minutes later, the jerk emerged from the bathroom. He glared at me and I glared right back at him and said, "Payback has struck again!" Pristine and Cristine got a huge kick out of that.

When we got to Atlantic City, I was really amazed by the beautiful skyline. I could not wait to play the slots. As soon as the bus let us out at the casino, Cristine, Pristine and I went inside, got change and grabbed three slot machines that were next to each other. After we played for a while, Cristine said that she wanted to try a different machine, so she wandered off.

Pristine and I wanted to stick with the machines we had for a little while longer. At one point, Pristine ran out of change so she asked me to watch her machine. While she was away, I put a few quarters into her machine and pulled the lever. Nothing happened. I put in a few more quarters and pulled the lever. Nothing happened. The third time I put money into her machine, a red seven came up first, then another, then another. I hit the jackpot!

Bells rang, the machine played a cute little tune and quarters poured out faster than I could get them into my bucket. I figured that after what Pristine did to me in the seventh grade with the underwear, she had this coming to her. I laughed out loud and said, "Payback has struck again."

I got all the quarters into my bucket before she came back. When she finally returned and sat down, that drunk jerk from the bus came out of nowhere. He tapped Pristine on the shoulder and said, "She hit the jackpot on your machine while you were gone." I jumped up and yelled, "Why the heck did you say that?" He replied, with a smirk on his face, "Because Payback is a bitch."

THE END