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"I guess I have reason to be proud of myself," Alex said to me, "after all, I own and operate the world's only PC casino."
"Don't be silly," I answered. "There are plenty of online casinos."
"I don't mean 'PC' as in 'personal computers,' he corrected me. "I mean it as in 'politically correct.' We are a five star casino and hotel -- and the PC Casino is the only one in the world absolutely guaranteed not to offend anyone."
"I bet the losers get offended," I laughed.
"We DON'T use that word here," Alex replied. "Don't you see that 'loser' has a very negative impact? We prefer to call them 'luck impaired.' It makes them feel much better."
"I don't know how much better a luck impaired person feels when he bets three hundred dollars on red and the roulette ball lands on black," I answered.
"I can't believe how many mistakes you made in that one sentence," Alex said in shock. "Have you no sense of decency?"
"What did I do?" I asked, a bit stunned.
"To start off with," Alex explained, the word 'person' is sexist. It means 'for each male offspring.' What about female offspring? Strike it from your vocabulary! In the future, say, 'a luck impaired individual.'
"'Roulette', too, is sexist," he continued. "The 'ette' ending is French for indicating a diminuitive female. We do not have 'roulette' at our casino, we have 'roul.'"
"But roul is played the same as roulette, isn't it?" I asked him.
"Almost," said Alex, "but we don't have red and black -- those were the other two mistakes you made in your sentence. Both colors are connected with racial minorities. Imagine how an Afro-American would feel if he heard someone yell, 'Hey! I just hit Black!' Instead, we use purple and orange."
"Aren't you afraid that a North Irish Protestant might be offended by the use of orange?" I asked.
Alex ran to the phone and made an emergency call.
"Get to the roul tables immediately and change the orange to tan," he said to his head of maintenance.
"I imagine that you also changed the 'Black' in 'Blackjack,'" I ventured.
"Not only the 'black' but also the 'Jack,'" he replied. "After all, it is sexist."
"Do you call it '21'? I asked.
"What? And be ageist? Of course not! We call it 'Faces and Aces'.
"Did you know that an 'Ace' is a pilot who has shot down 5 enemy planes?" I asked him.
"Oh, no!" cried Alex. "We can't have a game named after a war term! The military is NOT considered PC at all!"
I started to light up a cigarette and Alex looked as if he would have a stroke.
"There is no smoking in the hotel or casino," he said. "Tobacco is very un-PC!"
"Aren't you worried about offending smokers?" I asked.
"Of course not," said Alex. "Smokers are the only people in the world who it is perfectly proper to insult and abuse."
A telephone call came in and Alex answered it.
"Okay," he said, "you better send them up to my office -- but politely."
"This is one of the less pleasant parts of my job," he told me. "Two of our guests were spotted taking sheets from one of the rooms and I am going to have to deal with them."
"You mean they are thieves?"
"Please, not 'thieves', rather 'unauthorized adopters of property.'"
The two came into the office, with the sheets wrapped around them.
"There is some kinda mistake," said one of them. "These ain't your sheets. These are our clothes."
"You wear them?" Alex asked. "Are you ancient Romans?"
"Nope," the spokesman replied. "We are Ku Kluxers."
"The Klan? In my hotel casino? Never! Why you people hate EVERYBODY. You are anti-Black, anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic, anti-foreigners..."
"We sure are," the spokesman agreed. "I'm glad to meet a fella who knows so much about us. Maybe this is the right place for us to hold our Annual Klonvention."
"I really doubt it," Alex replied.
"We would need the hotel for a week and have to rent every single room," said the Klansman. "More than that, our members really like to gamble, so you will probably have to get extra staff for the casino."
"As I was saying," Alex continued, "I really doubt...
"Last year, we dropped a couple of million dollars at the tables."
"I really doubt," Alex continued, "that you will find a better place for your Klonvention. You're going to love it here."
"Just tell me one thing before we sign the deal," the Klansman said, "What does the 'PC' in your name stand for?"
"It means 'Pretty Closeminded'", Alex replied. We don't let the wrong kind of people in here. None of those damned foreigners or inferior minorities."
"Wonderful," said the Klansman. "Just one last thing -- a lot of us are from tobacco country. I sure hope you are not one of those weirdos who doesn't allow smoking in his place."
"Of course not," said said. "In fact, I was just trying to decide where we should put the booth with the free cigarettes -- near the blackjack or roulette tables."
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