I can’t tell you how I made it through over three decades on earth without ever setting foot inside a casino, but I’ve done it. Then, this past weekend, I broke the record and I’m no longer a casino virgin. The biggest reason I’ve never visited a casino is because I know my demons all too well. I possess an addictive personality—or should I say, it possesses me. I think I’m addicted to thinking about my addictive personality. I can listen to the same song twenty times in a row, for twenty days straight, until I know every breath the singer takes. If I fall in love with a new baseball cap at Old Navy, I simply must have one in every color. I refuse to keep pies or cheesecake in my apartment because I know they’ll have an extraordinarily brief shelf-life.

I have battled obsessive-compulsive disorder and alcoholism already. I don’t need to wage a war against gambling addiction. Despite my dramatic tendencies and my great love for Gladys Knight, who has spoken publicly about her gambling problem, I have no desire to take that midnight train to Gamblers Anonymous. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 4.2 million Americans have a gambling problem. I don’t want to make it 4.2 million plus one, so I’ve always figured, why tempt fate?

Despite my fears about being recruited into "the casino lifestyle," I had a great time this weekend. I went with my boyfriend and another gay male couple, and they made it lots of fun. I also treated the trip as a cultural case study. Most of the stereotypes I expected to see were accounted for and present. In our late twenties and early thirties, Scott, Brian, Steve and I were by far some of the youngest people there. The gigantic room looked like a parade of durable medical equipment: walkers, wheelchairs, specialized scooters, oxygen tanks, and a mesmerizing variety of canes.

The casino was in Pennsylvania, so smoking is allowed inside. Actually, you didn’t need to smoke inside—I saved a few bucks on cigarettes that day just by inhaling the stale, thick air to get my nicotine fix. When I did light up, I did it not because I had to, but because I wanted to. Ever since Delaware instituted the statewide smoking ban, I feel like a rebellious James Dean when I can smoke inside an out-of-State public building. Ashtrays were everywhere! Small, round, red ones, and large sand-filled containers. Happy smokers strolled the aisles with smoldering cigarette, and no matter where you were, you didn’t have to take more than two steps to the next ashtray. Puff, flick, puff, flick, puff, flick...that’s how it was each time I sauntered up to the free, self-serve soda fountain.

Casinos do anything to keep you wired and shelling out the cabbage, including free soda. I turned in alcoholism for caffeinism over three years ago, and I’ve never looked back. At one point, Scott threw his arm around me and inquired, wide-eyed, "Notice how awake and energized you feel in here?" I squinted my eyes to retain focus on the colorful, rolling screen in my face and nodded nonchalantly in agreement. "It’s because they pump oxygen into the casino to keep everyone awake and gambling!" He may be right, but to keep me sliding dollar bills into the slots, I didn’t need more oxygen.

I was already pumped up aplenty by the dizzying lights, the nonstop nicotine, the sweet caffeine, and the humming whir from some mysterious corner of the casino, as if a flyer saucer had landed hours ago but its occupants had yet to disembark.

Later, Scott commented, "Take a look around. What don’t you see anywhere in the casino?" At first, I thought it was some kind of Sphinx-like Dr. Seuss riddle. "A clock!" he declared, quite proud of his powers of observation—or more accurately, his ability to observe what was not there to see. Casino-owners hate timepieces, windows, and natural lighting, any indications of the outside world. Anything to keep you pumping money into the machines with no connection to reality.

The casino was everything I thought it would be (octogenarians everywhere, smoke-soaked carpeting, a less-than-stellar buffet), but I did learn a few things about myself. Rather, a few things I already knew about myself were reinforced. For example, I sometimes have trouble letting go and going with the flow. I took Scott’s suggestion to withdraw a small amount of cash from the ATM and look at it as money spent before I even started to play. This way, I was blowing the money on a good time—not on the faint hope that I’d walk out a millionaire, or even a dollar richer than when I entered. About halfway through our visit to the casino, one very happy patron screamed and hollered like her head was on fire. It turns out, she’d won only $300, which I was sure she’d blow by day’s end. (I also relearned that I can be a real pessimist.)

I also have elitist tendencies, and it irritated me that at least 95% of the casino slots required no skill whatsoever. You just perch on a stool in front of the game and push a button over and over and over again, until your fingertip becomes numb and you’re forced to switch hands. I did find a row of poker slots that require some skill. Unfortunately, twenty minutes and twenty bucks later, I learned that I have no poker-playing skill. I moved on to a mindless but wonderful slot game called "Twice Your Monkey." I still have no idea what the point of the game is, but I love the name and I did manage to line up bananas and pineapples several times, scoring me major points, and I achieved the coveted "Twice Your Monkey" bonus quite a few times, too. I didn’t "twice my money," but I did break even. I think I stuck with this game because I adored the little monkeys dressed up like drag queen hula girls, hips and coconut bras shaking to the rhythm of the islands.

So there. My first casino visit was not only fun, but it inspired an idea for a fabulous new drag outfit. Anyone know where I can find a size extra-large coconut bra?