[luckyjimm]

I sent this text to a schoolfriend who's lent me small sums many times in the past:

"I'm in a spot of rent-related bother- it's due now, I don't have money till in the week. Are you currently busto or robusto? Any chance you could help?"

He said "Yes I can help, but isn't it pay day?"

I explained (truthfully) I got paid weekly, but had to find a month's rent. I didn't add that I'd just lost all this week's wages, but he knows me well enough to guess that.

We're going to meet on Monday lunchtime. I'm not sure how much I could ask him for - he replied instantly, but I'm sure he's thinking along the lines of previous loans. Maybe I could ask him for £150, or even £200, but no more than that, and that would be more than he'd ever lent me. We've known each other 20 years, though, and he knows I'm good for it.

I would much rather borrow money from a poker friend, a fellow degen, than a "straight" to whom all this was alien. Before work today I called in on my best poker buddy in his clothes shop. Earlier in the week he'd told me about a £2,000 pot he'd lost in a revolting fashion in a PLO live game, and today he told me he'd just signed the lease on another shop and was paying rent on that while it was fitted out, so my "read" was that he didn't have money to spare without causing himself discomfort - and why should my friends suffer for my stupidity? So although I told him what happened, I didn't even ask him for a loan.

I now have $50 in my Neteller, plus £88 coming into my bank account overnight. If I pay the rent on Monday or Tuesday I think it will still be fine. If I could just have a nice spin-up over the weekend....