One day in Vegas

If I should have learned anything by now, it's that I can't go anywhere without one catastrophe or another, so I don't know why I find myself surprised when I'm in the middle of a new one.

That leads to my first day in Vegas, a day that made me want to turn around and come home.

Let me start with the background. I am cheap, although I prefer to think of it as thrifty. In preparation of my brothers wedding, I searched the four nearest airports for the lowest fare to get to Las Vegas. Turned out to be out of Allentown. I booked it, printed it and paid for it. Not once did I pay any mind to BUS on my ticket because I've seen this before and it usually means business class or what have you. (Turns out I must have seen something similar.)

The big day arrives and I head down to Allentown at 3 am. People told me I didn't have to be there until 5, but what I failed to understand was that that meant do not show up before five because nobody comes to work at the airport until 5 so you're just going to sit around playing with yourself and five days worth of luggage anyway. Luckily I wasn't the only one who didn't understand that. A couple of other people strolled in and waited along with me. One of those people looked at us and asked, "are you all here for the bus?" Of course, that made me smirk and think 'yeah, ya nutjob (albeit very hot nutjob) Greyhound is down the road.' Understand that at this point I'd long forgotten anything printed on my confirmation except the time of me flight. Imagine my surprise that after being shuffled through security we are all loaded onto a bus. A friggin bus. At an airport. Who'd've thunk! Then we're all DRIVEN to Newark and shuffled through security again. I get on the plane finally (on which I could not sleep to save a life) and think well ok, if that's my big problem for this trip, at least it's out of the way now and I no longer have to wonder when hell will rain down on me. Oh, the naive mind. Such a simple gal I am.

I am in Vegas. Oh, how wonderful, it's 35 degrees warmer and life is good. My brother picked me up at the airport, took me to the hotel, I got checked in and tell him to call me in 4 hours so I could nap and shower (3 am is early people, especially if midnight arrives 3 hours later at your destination) before having dinner with him, my parents, and the brother who was getting married. I meet some very nice people from Arizona on the way to my room, I got my nap and shower and think this is going to end up being ok after all. Poor, poor me.

I called my brother who had a job interview after he dropped me off and couldn't get ahold of him. (I found out hours later that the interview turned into a job on the spot.) I finally gave up and headed down to the lobby for a cab. I was in the Stratosphere headed to the Riviera. Cab ride $5.90. I handed the non english speaking shit a 20 and asked for 10 back. By my math that is nearly a 90% tip. That is a pretty decent tip by my standards for a 5 minute ride. While he's digging for my ten he asked me for a dime which completely confused me but I was in no mood to try to decipher what ever language he was speaking and started digging for a dime and could only find quarters. I assume because I was taking so long to find change that triggered his insanity to break loose and he started screaming at me. Honestly, I didn't understand most of it but what I did get was "THIS IS VEGAS, YOU HAVE TO PAY TO GO PLACES IN VEGAS" (which is completely untrue because there's a boat load of free shit in Vegas if you get out of the casino's long enough to look...you can even drink free in the casinos as long as you have a slot machine or table in front of you). I was stunned. I let him yell at me for a minute or so and finally did my usual mental health check that I use when odd situations like this pop up--"Am I awake?" Check. "Have I taken any mind altering drugs?" Nope. "Is there any indication I am hallucinating?" Nope. When the check list was complete, I let the wrath of the bus ride and lack of sleep loose on him and called him words that would make most truckers blush and followed up by grabbing my money out of his hands and pitched the quarter at the back of his bald head (which to my amusement smacked him dead-on and made a nice audible thup). Getting out of the cab, I showered him with more nasty words before slamming the door and telling him to go stick certain parts of his anatomy in certain farm animals where ever he came from. He wasn't the only one to to witness the last of my charming words because the door man came to me as I was crossing the drive to ask what happened and I think I regrettably yelled my story at him. He broke my anger by asking if I got his name (I didn't). I had to laugh, because I was far too shocked to even think about his name.

I found my parents. My brother called and we all went to dinner. Surely, with my adventures to this point, hell has come and gone. We had a nice dinner and then went to gamble. I stuck $60 in a slot machine and lost it all, my dad sits beside me, sticks $5 in and wins $300. I gave up. We left and everything was good again...then Sean takes me back to the hotel. I ran into those nice people from Arizona again and we exchanged the type of idle chitchat you have with complete strangers who you keep running into on the way to the escalator that leads to the elevators we need. Ya'll who know me, know that I can't usually do two things at once. That has not changed because as I'm talking to them I loose my footing getting onto the escalator forcing me to fall shoulder first onto the the really hard metal stairs. That would explain why I rode halfway up the damn thing on my face somewhere between hysterical laughter and excruciating tears as I decided that maybe this wasn't the night for me to go see the show I wanted to see. When I finally pulled myself up, I turned around half expecting those people to be there with me for some reason. Being smarter than I am, they weren't; but they were at the bottom looking up at me with looks that wouldn't have better expressed 'what the hell was that?!' if they had spoken it. I managed to give them a thumbs up and yell down 'and it's only day one people' before turning back in total humiliation praying I save my sobs at least until I get to my floor.

Most people come home from Vegas broke or rich. I come home banged up and bruised.

To hell with the show, I'm going to bed.

Maybe tomorrow I can convince my brother and his bride to let Elvis marry them.