Things I Learned About Vegas
I’m back from the big family reunion. My mother sat next to a man on the plane who looked exactly like an Easter egg, complete with a yellow-and-white striped polo shirt. The elevators to our hotel rooms were right by the Keno lounge, where people sit and blankly stare at the Keno numbers flashing up on the screen, their complimentary cocktail lazily in hand. (I had a strange compulsion, as we were leaving this morning, to grab the microphone and start shouting nonsense numbers: “MINUS 23! DOUBLE 11s! 4,000!”)
Some things I learned about Las Vegas, where I had never been before and, god willing, will never return:
1. It’s HOT.
2. Everything is much farther away than you think it is, because there isn’t anything blocking your view, and the casinos are all unimaginably large. So you can walk outside and say, “The Stardust is just up the street! Let’s go!” and three hours later, your dried husk is found on the sidewalk, clutching an empty water bottle.
3. Everyone walking towards you in these giant throngs of humanity is going to play chicken with you, walking straight at you until the very last microsecond, when they’ll veer unpredictably away.
4. Asking for directions is stupid and just wastes time. The directions will be either totally wrong, or so complicated they evaporate from your dehydrated brain the instant you walk away.
5. Did I mention it’s HOT?
6. A $12 roller coaster ride couldn’t possibly be worth the price, unless possibly oral sex was offered at the conclusion. Which it wasn’t.
7. I wasn’t surprised at the scale of Vegas – it’s pretty much what I expected in that regard. What did strike me was the fakeness of everything. And not just that everything was fake, but how they reveled in the fakeness. Even things that could have been real were made fake instead, at great expense.
8. It’s LOUD. That ringing of the slot machines seeps into your soul; you don’t realize how LOUD it is until you finally find someplace that’s even slightly quiet.
9. Lots of the entertainment at my favorite hotel, the Venetian, apparently consisted of costumed people standing motionless like mannequins, to the delight of passing crowds. This now joins “giant Japanese carp” on the list of things that freak me out on principle.
So how was your weekend?
You came amazingly close to mirroring my own impressions of Vegas. Spectacular? Yes! Colorful? Yes! Wanna go again? Nope. (Do hope you had an OK time though.)
If I’d had any presence of mind, I would have hooked you up with my ex Carl and his boyfriend Sal — they could have shown you the “real” Las Vegas (assuming it’s there to be shown to you).
So did you get stood up or what?
I don’t think there is any *real* Las Vegas. 🙂
AJ, I love how you’ve adopted my “shrinking violet” approach to life!
One quote always sticks in my mind…A few years ago I heard a piece on NPR about how Death Valley was becoming a popular travel destination for Europeans (who apparently find huge desolate wastelands fascinating). The interviewer asked a German tourist if Death Valley was his idea of hell. The German’s reply: “No, I’ve just been to Las Vegas.”
Actually, I rather enjoyed Vegas when I visited for the first (and only) time Labor Day weekend last year, when C and I were the attendants at his best friend’s wedding. Then again, I stayed at a resort that was not on the strip, in a suite that was at least 1500 square feet, with a balcony the size of my backyard and a fancy pants bathroom you could practically take a swim in (no, this is not my normal mode of travel). I didn’t gamble, got taken out to dinner, and got to see Cirque de Soleil. What wasn’t to love?
Well, the heat for one thing. And the dryness. As soon as you step out of the AC, it’s like someone took a hair dryer to your throat.