Dan and I went to Las Vegas this weekend and we're completely and utterly exhausted. I don't think I've ever laughed as much as I did this past weekend either.
First of all, I want to say a little something about the wonder that is the Tucson airport. As I was told by a Chinese guy in Las Vegas on Saturday....its an international airport. (I won't even get into the meaning of that one....) Tucson airport is probably the best airport in the world. I say this because it is nearly always empty and it is probably one of the last airports where you can arrive very close to your departure time without being stuck in a large line and stressing out. Its very clean, there are a lot of bars and places to eat and the airport just seems to lack the stress and frenzy that exists in every other airport I've ever visited. I mean, the Miami airport is grosser than an inner-city bus station...(I'm thinking of YOU NYC port authority....). I'm just saying that Tucson airport is pretty much a dream as airports go now-a-days.
Dan and I flew on Southwest which is such a pain in the butt to fly with because of their weird check in line thing. I just hate it. We stopped and had a drink on the way to our gate so we were late and, for the first time ever, I heard my named called over the intercom to board a flight. Good start! There were no seats left together until the very last row of the airplane so we got back there. Oh yeah, Dan has a big issue with the idiots who take extremely large carry-ons onto planes. As they walked by us lugging their enormous carry-ons, Dan talked about kicking them in various parts of their bodies. I offered suggestions on how to execute the kick so as to inflict the greatest amount of pain. For example, a kick in the gut is best when the toe is pointed...that sort of thing.
We sat next to this sort of quiet guy who laughed as Dan described the safety instructions on the laminated picture card and made sure I was complying with all of the airline safety instructions (seat belt fastened). The steward came by and Dan went into an elaborate decision-making process about what drinks to buy...he involved a few people sitting next to us and ended up buying drinks for several people in our vicinity. The quiet guy in our row didn't want a drink but Dan asked him to pretend he was getting one so that he could get an extra drink (because you're only allowed to buy yourself one drink at a time). After the complicated ordering process was finished, we learned that our seat mate was a former Tucson police officer and now a Parker, CO police officer who has flown down to Tucson to testify in a child molestation case. So...Dan basically just asked a cop to help him circumvent the SW Airlines alcohol rules. Nice. I volunteered to help the cop arrest Dan if he wanted but the guy was really cool. I learned that he thought a few people looked familiar to him on the plane and that he thought it may have been because he had previously arrested them for DUIs. He said that he doesn't remember names but that he never forgets a face. I thought a Vegas flight was probably a good place to see a lot of faces he recognized.
We made it to Vegas and, after picking up our checked bags (which were smaller than other people's carry-ons), we caught a cab to the Tropicana. As we pulled up to our hotel, the cab driver told us that he wouldn't stay at the Tropicana...thinking that he would stay at a much nicer place, I asked him where he would stay..."oh, the Motel 6 or someplace." ok....We didn't say another word for the rest of the ride.... After Dan paid the fare and gave him a tip, the cab driver apologized and said that he never knows whether to talk to keep quiet....Dan suggested that he work a little on his social skills. I thought that was enough of a tip for that guy.
We're registering at the hotel and our rooms are comped so Dan (trying to show off) asks for his casino host. His "usual" host isn't in so this other guy comes out. Dan (acting very suave) leans in and tells the guy that he'd like tickets for the comedy show at the Tropicana...the Johnny Clayton show. The casino host just looked at him with a blank stare. Dan says it a little louder..."You know....the Johnny Clayton show...the comedian you have here." The host then looked at him and said, "Do you mean Bobby Slayton?" Dan (not missing a beat) says "Yeah...that guy you just said........[long pause].....I rhymed at least." The host said that he'd see what he could do. I knew that he wasn't going to do anything. We never say the Johnny Clayton show or the Bobby Slayton show for that matter.
We went upstairs, put down our bags and headed to the casino. Now, I'm a poor gambler because it physically hurts me to lose money when I could have bought a nice pair of shoes. I put aside a couple of hundred dollars as my limit and played with it until it was gone. If you've ever been to Vegas, you know that they change out the dealers on the BlackJack tables every hour or so (sometimes sooner) and, as I'm sure you can guess, we had a lot of characters. There were several bossy eastern european ladies who, after they decided they liked you, would just shake their heads if you did something foolish. One African dealer was from Eritrea and Dan called her "East Side." That's because Eritrea is on the east coast of Africa....yep...we're the only people who got that. We both did well in the Tropicana and visited the Luxor where Dan made his bet on the Rams to win the Super Bowl (85 to 1 odds) and the conference championship (I forget). We believe we played at the Luxor, Mandalay Bay and MGM. The lions weren't around then (because it was the middle of the morning). At around 6 am, realized that the sun was sort of coming out again...is that was that yellow thing is? Had we really stayed up all night? What do you do when you've stayed up all night? Ah...hem...go to New York, New York and play some more BlackJack...oh yeah....and you switch from beer to coffee and Bailey's....duh. At NY, NY, the dealer was really nice but she must have been going through some hot flashes or something because she kept talking about how hot the place was and she was sweating. Now, it wasn't freezing or anything but it certainly wasn't hot enough to make a person (let alone the dealer) sweat. She was an older lady and told me that she thought Dan looked a little like Kevin Costner. I know...he's my handsome sweetie....even without beer goggles.
At around 7:45 am or so, we decided that we should take a nap and headed back to our hotel room. At 11 am, we were back up and ready to hit the buffet. It was probably the alcohol from the night before but I didn't feel sore or achy that previous night. I could barely walk Saturday. You see, I have missed a month of Mack workouts because of work stuff and I went back two times last week. Mack pretty much kicked my sorry butt and I had to do deep squats on the bar which pretty much caused my quads to seize up on Saturday. I had to hold onto Dan's arm to walk down stairs and I used the handicapped toilet stalls (because of that handy rail they have in there). It was pretty pathetic. We made it to the MGM next and saw the lions. There was a male and a female and it was feeding time. Dan and I couldn't get over how much they acted like our cats but, of course, they were much, much bigger. The female lion even played with a ball that huge claw marks in it from previous games. Pretty cool.
We decided to walk down the strip and check out some of the other casinos. I don't know if any of you have been to Vegas before but there are these guys that hand out pornographic cards as you walk down the Vegas strip. In case you don't get handed one, you can just look down and see these cards and the exposed women on them on the sidewalk where they've been thrown. These card-pushers are very much in people's faces too. I noticed that they were really giving Dan a lot of these cards (more then usual actually), after a while he would just take them and throw them away once we'd walked on. I wondered if it maybe had something to do with the economy and it was a little annoying that they were so insistent. We decided to go to the Planet Hollywood casino which is new (to me) and we were sitting down to get a drink when Dan said, "Tanja....my fly is down! Did you know?" Ah hah! That explains everything. Now I know why they were giving Dan more than his usual share of cards. I was pretty much walking down the Vegas strip with a pervert! I could just imagine that they were thinking that Dan really needed those porno cards asap. As a result of this mishap, Dan now insists that I look at his crotch frequently.....
We made it back to the hotel and Dan received a lot fewer cards. The only thing we had to do was go to this "guest" function at the Tropicana where they had a free buffet and where they were drawing people's names out of a hat for cash prizes. I thought that it couldn't be that bad. Well...we were probably the youngest people there and the band was wearing lederhosen and singing polka music. They also told really lame jokes between their songs (along the lines of "waiter...there's a fly in my soup") and they called themselves the "Dumkopfs." No...I'm not kidding. After all the old people got their names pulled from the hat, we headed back to the casino and lost some more money. It was a total blast.
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