It was the best of nights. It was the worst of nights. Either way, it was a night to remember. If he only could.

There is a moral to this story: When you win $15,000 at the casino, go home and hide it under the mattress before celebrating your good luck at a strip club. Otherwise, you might wake up— bloody, dazed and confused—on the street the next morning, wondering how you got there and where-oh-where your stash could be.

This was, according to the police report, the sad-but-true saga last week of a 39-year-old Orchard Park man who hit it big, got big-time stupid, and—fortunately— lived to tell the tale. Or, at least, what he can remember of it.

The big winner/loser agreed to tell me the story on the condition that I did not use his name. “Joe” and I met Thursday at a local restaurant.

It started a week ago Friday morning. He got off his third-shift job and headed for the downtown Buffalo “slot shack,” as he called it, with $300. Ten hours later, he had $3,000.

Flush with victory, and more than a few Jack Daniels-and- cokes, Joe took a cab to Seneca Niagara Casino. He spent the next 12 hours playing video poker and blackjack. When the last card turned on Saturday morning, he had $15,000.

“I had never won that big before,” he said. “Even the people working there were saying, ‘What the hell is with you?’ ”

At that point, most folks would have taken the money and run. Joe took a cab downtown, bought new jeans and boots, hung around. Then he made a $15,000 mistake. Saturday afternoon he headed to Club Chit-Chat on Clinton Street.

I asked Joe the obvious question: What were you thinking?

“Look, I’m not a complete idiot,” he replied, noting that he shifted a few grand of “bar money” into a front pocket.

I do not want to be too tough on the guy. Many of us have had nights where we do dumb things, end up in a place where we do not want to be, sometimes with someone we do not want to be with. Take that worst night, multiply it exponentially, and you get in the neighborhood of Joe’s 48-hour odyssey.

“I remember it was slow at the bar,” he continued. “I talked to the barmaid and a [dancer]. The next thing I know, it’s 4:30 in the morning, I’m lying on [Smith] street, stripped of everything but my jeans, shirt and boots, with a black eye and my lip [messed] up.”

The rolled wads of money in his back pocket were gone.

He told police he may have been drugged. But considering the cumulative toll of Jack-and-cokes at various venues, plus shots at the club, Joe conceded that “it’s feasible” he passed out at the bar. Or somewhere else.

“Look, I can’t deny the ‘idiot’ factor,” he acknowledged. “It’s a stupid story, if [people] want to make fun, that’s fine. It’s embarrassing, there’s no reason not to call me a stupid [jerk].”

Actually, as dumb as he was that night, Joe is not dumb. He is a big, laid-back, likable guy who worked as an actor, wrote an unpublished novel and, as you might suspect, has a gambling problem atop an overfondness for drink. Looking back, he is smart enough to wonder how he could have been so dumb.

He called the bar a couple of nights later, talked to the barmaid. She said he was buying everybody shots and leaving $100 tips, then had some words with a dancer and split.

Maybe. And maybe, when you flash that kind of money in a strip club, you paint a target on your back.

There is a silver lining. Whoever rolled him forgot to look in his front pocket. Stuffed in it were fourteen $100 bills. In the end, he still came out ahead.

“The real reason I came out ahead,” he said, “is because I’m still alive.”

I told you the guy is not so dumb.