The Misadventures of Emerald

I JUST GOT FALSELY ACCUSED OF CHEATING AT A CASINO!

This weird day I'm about to write down is not NEARLY as crazy as the Godzilla one, but how it happened in the first place STILL surprises me.

Mom finally got a raise from her weather reporting job and told me and Ruby that she now has enough cash to go have some fun at the casino. Ruby and I always had loved the casino and we still love going there whenever we can. When we heard this news, we were so excited, we put our shoes on and packed our bags before you could even sneeze. By the time we got there, I spotted a wanted poster in front of the building. That's already odd to me because usually a bunch of wanted posters are in the BACK of the building. (I used to go there to see the funny pictures of the crooks) Another thing about it that was odd was its picture. It looked an awful lot like me just with a crooks hat and some 5 O'clock shadow. For some laughs and giggles I took out some marker that was conveniently in my pocket and drew a mustache and a beard on the 5 O'clock shadow. Once that was done, I strolled in the casino with Mom and Ruby.

There were so many games at the casino, you couldn't count how many there were! Before I could even put my quarter into the arcade machine, some cops sneak attacked me and dragged me out of the casino. I tried to call Mom and Ruby for help, but of course, Ruby was too distracted by an arcade machine to hear me, and Mom was too busy counting up the money she was about to spend. Defenseless once again, the cops dragged me inside of their shiny police car. I tried asking them what the heck is going on, but they never responded. After 3 attempts of doing this, they eventually brought out some duct tape, and taped my mouth shut. Wow. Talk about being annoying just for some questions. So now I REALLY couldn't do anything, my hands were handcuffed behind my back, my mouth was taped shut, what was I to do then? Luckily, the cops had accidently hit something while driving me to the courtroom. The crash made me lose my balance, and as the cops were getting out of the car to see what they crashed into, I slammed right into the side of the car and doing THAT somehow broke the handcuffs. So after removing the duct tape from my mouth, I knew I had to escape the cops. So what'd I do? I got out of their shiny car and told the cops that the poster's picture didn't match what I looked like and that this all was a mistake. It seemed like the cops were actually going to BELIEVE me, but guess what? They didn't. They said that they weren't buying my "story" and asked me why I'm not in the car being handcuffed with some duct tape on my yapper. "Look," I started explaining. "I can see why you'd mistake me for a criminal based on that poster, but if you looked closely at it, you'd see some 5 O'clock shadow. Do I look like I've got 5 O'clock shadow?"

The cops didn't believe me AGAIN and one of them was so annoyed at my "lies" that he was chasing me with a real melee weapon. Luckily, the car was so shiny that it actually blinded the cop chasing me. While the one who didn't chase me was calling for help, all I did was run away to get out of that mess. Less than 30 minutes later, I reached the casino. Through the window, I saw that Ruby and Mom were still in there. Phew. Is it all over? Believe it or not, no. I saw a sign on the front door saying, "THIS CASINO IS CLOSED FOR TODAY! WILD CROOK ON THE LOOSE!" I saw some flashing lights behind me with police sirens. Just as a police officer was about to tackle me, I showed them the poster to compare its picture with me. They DID see that 5 O'clock shadow difference, but first, they had to go ahead and rip my face off. Well, they didn't really rip my face off, but seriously, why did they think I was wearing a mask? The guy on the poster didn't wear a mask. Who wears masks nowadays anyway? Not anyone I know.

So after some serious apologizing, the police officer gave me $20 and left. That turned out well. I strolled inside the casino again and Mom was wondering where I got the $20 from. I told her it was from a police officer, but of course, she confiscated the $20 because she thought I was lying AND took it from her purse. I had never once took anything from anyone so now I'm starting to wonder what hit her in the head recently. Whatever.