VEGAS.
Just the mere mentioning of the word can make you feel hung over, broke, confused and slightly senile. Even if you spend only 2 days in that part of the country, your age is accelerated by at least 5 years. This is a scientific fact.
Yet time after time I’m inexplicably drawn out to this glorified sandbox with Christmas lights to torture myself in ways that are so brutal that the Geneva Convention should outlaw them. Although each time I arrive there it’s of my own accord under the guise of “celebrating”.
Let’s celebrate by performing involuntary personal protein spills. Let’s celebrate by losing all our hard earned money on numbers, colors or a cab driver that takes the long way to our destination by telling us it’s a shortcut. Let’s celebrate by getting thrown out of a club because we did a swan dive onto the champagne table during Twisted Sister’s “I Wanna Rock.” Let’s celebrate by attempting to marry a complete stranger.
Yes my friends, Vegas is the place you go to kill yourself or at the very least attempt character assassination upon one’s self when conventional methods have become just too mundane and cliché.
And this is where my brother Todd wanted to go in observance of his 30th birthday.
As most of us know, when you turn 30 you want to do something momentous that stands apart from all your other birthdays. Ironically enough, the way we choose to celebrate this occasion almost guarantees that we won’t live to celebrate another one.
Todd was no different. He and his fiancée Megan were going to spend a weekend in Sin City and asked me to meet them there. I couldn’t say no and usually the best times to do something you don’t want to do is when the opportunity presents itself as something you can’t decline. It wasn’t the fact that I didn’t want to see him. Nor was money an issue and I proved that by burning through all of it. It was because I have the tendency to go above and beyond my normal daily stupidity while in that particular geographic location.
So immediately upon accepting his invitation, I did the first anti-intellectual thing I could in regard to Vegas without even having to be in its area code. I invited some girl to meet me out there that I hardly knew. Now I’d known of her and what I knew was this: Asian, slender, breast augmentation, drinker, & temper. I’d also heard some stories about her and they involved this: Brawler, hogtie, freeway, anal and in the eye.
And if all that wonderful second hand information on a prospective date weren’t enough, fate stepped in to seal the deal. Quite literally while I was contemplating who my guest should be, she sent me a text and it read: “Too bad you’re not here tonight, I’d let you take me home and violate me a hundred different ways.”
My decision making process requires little persuasion and even less common sense.
The plan was for all of us to stay from Friday night until Sunday evening. It was just the right amount of time to assault our livers and our bank accounts without completely destroying both.
FRIDAY
We were all flying in from different parts of the country at different times. Todd’s fiancé Megan arrived first and I followed shortly after. Next to land was Todd and lastly my guest. We’ll call her Priscilla…because her real name is Shan.
I’d like to say something incredible happened but all I can recall is drinking cheap beer at a cheap casino, the rest is really fuzzy.
SATURDAY
I wake up in my and Priscilla's room with Priscilla jumping up and down on the bed, gleefully telling me to wake up. My first reaction is to look at the clock. It tells me that it's 7 in the A.M. My next instinctual reaction is a mixture of bewilderment and denial. What reason is there to possibly be up at 7 in the morning unless you were doing cocaine until 6?
I look down at myself and see that all my clothing is still on. There can be only two reasons for this. The first is that I got really drunk and passed out before any drunken consensual sex. The second is that we did have drunken consensual sex and it was so awful that I got fully dressed afterwards. This act would insure that when I awoke I would automatically think that I got really drunk and passed out before any drunken consensual sex occurred.
“It’s a bit early to be up isn’t it?” I ask / plead.
“I’ll sleep when I get home. I’ve been working my ass off since I can’t remember when and this is my vacation. I want to live it to the fullest. Now get up, get up, get up!”
Even though her requests are a direct threat to my constitution I sympathize. She’d previously told me that her last two outings to this place weren’t so grand. This could be because one included a cross-country trip while smoking a pound of crank.
The other reason… because she was held hostage to a slot machine at Caesar’s Palace. Not as a result of an addiction to gambling or being on a lucky streak. Her crisis was the fact that she was tripping on acid so hard that she thought if she got off her stool in front of the slot machine that the floor would swallow her up.
“C’mon get up! I want to get a tattoo today so it’s best if we get there early to get an appointment.”
Somewhere along the line I remember the one thing she told me she HAD to do while in Vegas was to get some ink at Hart & Huntington. I know that the tattoo shop will be swamped so I can’t argue with her logic. But I’m still lacking any real motivation to go from a horizontal position to a vertical one.
I take a look at the Styrofoam cooler that I bought and filled with beer. I believe that its good to have alcohol on hand at all times while on sabbatical. It helps me with my own logic.
“I’ll get up if you grab me a beer.”
Like a true queen, she grabs one for me and one for herself and we both begin our day by officially clocking in.
I have no idea where my brother and his wife-to-be are or if they’re even alive. I figure there’s nothing I can do about either scenario so Priscilla and I get some breakfast. I slam a few screwdrivers with my meal and by the time it’s finished I’m totally shit housed as well as having made contact with my sibling.
He tells me that he and the little lady are going to do some site seeing. He then inquires if Priscilla came thorough on the reservations she said she’d book for our dinner later on in the evening. I tell him everything is set and we agree to meet at his room at 6pm.
Priscilla and I head over to The Palms and put her name in for an appointment at Hart & Huntington. It’s 10 a.m. by this time. They tell us to come back at 2 p.m. and they’ll ink her up. Priscilla suggests we run around town to kill some time. I tell her I have a much better idea. I insist that we stay at the casino and gamble. Because so long as you’re spending money, the alcohol is free.
She’s reticent about this idea at first because she doesn’t want to be completely annihilated when she gets her tattoo. I tell her that she doesn’t have to drink and that if it makes her feel better, that she can just watch me drink. This works as well as one might expect.
After a couple hours, she’s completely annihilated and coming up with all sorts of great ideas like renting a limo to take us to dinner later on. She then tells me that her friends thought she was coming to Vegas to get married. I tell her there’s no reason we should keep our drunken love hidden from the rest of the world any longer. We call each other’s friends and tell them we are to leave as husband and wife and are considering the next 30 some odd hours as our honeymoon.
Finally after boozing, brainstorming, planning a wedding / honeymoon and booking a limo, it’s time for Priscilla to get her tattoo. We’re standing outside the shop; well that’s probably not an accurate description. We’re leaning up against the shop’s window waiting for her name to be called. While waiting, we’re engaged in drunken public behavior. Swaying, making out, laughing at nothing in particular and basically daring anyone to call us sober or cognitive of the environment around us.
Priscilla gets called in and I follow. An employee of the shop takes us to the back and sits us down. This is the official catalyst to the honeymoon ending. The employee tells us that Priscilla is too shit faced to get a tattoo. He says that being intoxicated is a direct violation of the store’s policy and if she wants a tattoo she’ll have to return tomorrow…sober.
This makes sense to me and I tell the guy I completely understand. Priscilla has a look of disbelief and resentment on her face. The guy asks her if she understands what he just said and she nods her head in defeat. We leave and take a cab back to our hotel. All the drinking and gambling and life changing decisions I’ve made in the past few hours have taken its toll on me. I’m ready for a nap.
Priscilla says very little on the way back to the hotel and once we get to our room she laments on how embarrassed she felt and how all that waiting was for nothing. I remind her that things like this happen all the time and that it wasn’t anything personal. I let her know that there’s still tomorrow so there’s no reason to be upset.
This last comment I make gives me an explosive introduction to her temper.
“No reason to be upset? Are you fucking kidding me? It wasn’t you that waited all after-fucking- noon to get a tattoo. And they refused to work on me because I was “too intoxicated” you know why that is? It’s because you insisted on staying there and getting drunk, I wanted to go run around and stay sober!”
Clearly her dilemma is my fault so I deal with it in the most mature and adult way I know how. I fall asleep.
I wake up a couple hours later and do the first thing any self respecting visitor of Las Vegas should do, grab a drink. Priscilla is asleep on the bed and I’m hoping that her little out burst was a figment of my imagination. I give Todd a call and let him know about the limo that’s picking us up and that we need to be curbside by 6:30pm because dinner reservations are at 7pm.
I’m on my second drink when Priscilla comes to. I tell her it’s getting about that time and ask her if she’d like first dibbs on the bathroom for preparation purposes. She gives me a pissed off look that tells me her shitty attitude wasn’t a figment of my imagination. Her look also conveys that it would bode me well not to make any type of verbal announcements, requests or suggestions until further notice. I take this hint and utilize it to the best of my ability.
“Are you going to get up and get ready or just sit there and pout all night about not getting your tattoo? At 6pm I’m walking out the door and going to dinner with my brother and his girlfriend with or without you.”
After my many, many years of saying the wrong thing after I’d just been warned not to say anything at all, you’d figure I’d have learned my lesson by now. Even objects such as bottles, fists and dishes have been teaching aids used in trying to get across the point that there’s a time to talk and a time to shut the fuck up.
But I’m a slow learner. Lucky for me, Priscilla only had a bag of crackers at her disposal. But they went airborne none the less along with the statement that I was an immature asshole and that I could go to dinner by myself just as soon as I was finished fucking myself.
I tell her that her reputation precedes her and then take advantage of the empty bathroom and clean myself up. It’s now 5:45pm and Priscilla is still sulking on the bed. I bid her a good evening and make good on my threat to leave without her. I walk down the hall to Todd’s room, knock on the door and he answers.
“Hey man, where’s Priscilla?”
“She’s not going to make it tonight due to unforeseen circumstances of being insane.”
“That’s cool, you ready to go?”
“Yeah I am. But beings that she was going to pay for the limo, this means no limo.”
“I think we’ll manage, will we still be able to get into the restaurant even though she put the reservations in her name?’
“I don’t see that as a problem. There are always a million lies one can recite when the truth seems ineffective or detrimental.
“Well good, let’s go eat.”
Megan, Todd and myself take a cab to our restaurant, name drop and get seated. He and Megan are asking about the factors that led to a chair being empty at our table. I give them a quick synopsis as well as brush up on my public image skills at the sake of someone not around to defend themselves. Halfway through my speech I get a call from Priscilla.
“Where are you?”
“I’m having dinner with Todd and Megan, where are you?”
“I’m at the fucking hotel you asshole, in case you didn’t notice, YOU FUCKING LEFT ME HERE!”
“No, I told you I was leaving and you chose to stay. Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to let you go. I have a menu to peruse.”
I hang up. She calls right back before I have a chance to do my first saki bomb of the night.
“What restaurant are you guys at?”
“Uh, the one you made reservations for of course.”
“You went in there and said you were me?”
“Yeah, well, more or less.”
“Oh my god, you are such a fucking douche! I can’t even begin to fucking believe the nerve of you!”
“Well I have my moments, one moment at a time. But the good news is that even though we’re seated, there’s still an extra chair at the table. Do you want me to see if we can add one more to our party?”
It’s clear to Todd and Megan that I’m trying my hand at diplomacy regardless of how crude and insulting it is to the actual act of dealing with other people using skill and tact. Megan being the sagacious and elegant woman that she is chimes in loud enough for her suggestion to be heard on the other end of my phone.
“Come on out as soon as you can Priscilla, we just sat down. We all want you to be here and Kris will behave himself.”
I echo the sentiment back to Priscilla. It’s met with verbal venom so strong that my skin starts to itch as an allergic reaction.
“You’re the biggest fucking asshole I know right now, but I’m not going to let your bullshit attitude ruin my vacation. I’m going to get ready and take MY fucking limo to the restaurant and so help me god we get along tonight for your sake.”
To be continued…
