The Internet Book Club

I’m not proud to admit it, but my mother is addicted to gambling. She never went to a casino before she was 57 and then became addicted to the slots. The single-mindedness it takes to completely pay attention to a slot machine for hour after hour confounds me. I get bored with it in ten minutes, sometimes less. But Mom racks up debts and tries to pay them back however she can. I have to hide my money in cell phone cases since she goes into my room when I’m not home and rifles through everything. I found out all this the hard way. I’d ordered Chinese food for dinner and when I went into my room to find the money to pay I found the small box where I keep all my money empty. Normally, I leave at least a couple of hundred dollars in there for spending money. Naturally, I was enraged, especially since I knew my mother had taken it since no one else went into my room like she did when she was cleaning. When confronted with it, she didn’t see the big deal since she claimed she was going to pay me back. She didn’t even know she had a problem.