"Vegas" Things I've Done

Everyone who reads this blog knows that my utter lack of style, flair, and sophistication is enough to make Frank Sinatra spin in his hipster grave; and my absence of "game" threatens to take the Sin out of Sin City. I'm just not that "Vegas", but I have pretended to be a few times. Here's a rundown of "Vegas" things I've done.

While talking to a tourist, I pretended to also be a tourist. I met a girl from St. Louis, who when I told her I was from Louisville thought "Louisville" was a slang term for St. Louis. She was genuinely impressed when I showed her my Honorary Kentucky Colonel I.D. card and believed me when I told her it afforded me a twenty percent discount at KFC's across the country.

"You mean you go in a KFC and flash that card and they take off..."

"Twenty percent, yeah," I said. "I'm also allowed to boss the employees around."

"No! Really?"

"Yeah, they completely have to do my bidding," I told her as my co-workers suppressed laughter.

She turned to my then co-workers Dan and Megan. "Do you guys have these cards?"

I didn't know if they'd be able to keep a straight face, so I answered for them. "No, they're not from Kentucky. They're from California."

"How do you know them?" Ms. Inquisitive asked.

"I met them last night at Studio 54."

Just then our friend Tracey arrived. I stood up to greet her and she hugged me, 'cause Tracey was a hugger.

"How do you know her?" the tourist asked.

"I met her last night, too."

The tourist then looked right at me and asked in all seriousness, "Are you a man-whore?"

That put an abrupt end to the holding in of laughter on the part of my friends. I was too busy contemplating the apparently woeful state of man-whoredness in Missouri, but I laughed later.

*****
I visited an afterhours club. In Louisville the bars close at 4am. You leave, go to White Castle or Steak-n-Shake and go home. In Vegas, they have clubs that don't even open until most decent sorts are in bed. I went to a place called Drai's that won't even let anyone in until midnight, and if you go that early you'll be alone. We got there at 3am and the place was packed with cocktail waitresses, showgirls, strippers and others who work late. This was their evening. There were a lot of beautiful people there, but this being Vegas I knew I could count on at least one group of sleazy old guys with Mr. T gold around their necks and matching white shoes and belts to make me feel like a nightlife superstar.

*****
I knowingly complained about a tourist to a disgruntled local. I was at a bar on the Strip and a woman was yelling at the bartender about the $4 she was just charged for a Coke. Yeah, that sucks but if you don't want it don't pay for it. Leave it on the counter.
When the angry lady reluctantly paid and stormed off, I took her place directly in front of the bar, shook my head, and said simply "Tourists." The bartender comped my Makers and Coke.

*****
I felt up a married woman at a Pearl Jam concert. In front of her husband. At his insistence. My roommate's boss at the time was married to a stripper and they went with us to see Pearl Jam at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. The couple had a few drinks and before I could say "How much for a lap dance?" the off-duty stripper was freelancing and had her shirt off. Her fake boobs were cartoonishly big for her frame, but it was quality work. Her doctor was the Rembrandt of saline. Before Eddie Vedder could finish emoting his next emotion, she was grinding her hot little ass into my crotch. I was horrified and prepared to defend myself against an anticipated onslaught from her hubbie, but he smiled, gave me the thumbs-up sign, and then TOOK MY HANDS AND PLACED THEM ON HIS WIFE'S MAMMOTH TITTIES. Yeah, it creeped me out for a second, but I was raised Southern and it would have been rude to reject such hospitality. While she dry-humped me I felt her up like my life depended on it. It was then that I felt the piercing stares of the people in the row behind me. I turned to them and yelled, "I don't even know her name," never for a second releasing the stripper's funbags from my gentle grasp. They seemed understandably shocked and outraged, so I said, "And that's her husband." It's a miracle security didn't toss us out.

*****
I've spent the last two Thanksgivings with the aforementioned couple. My ex-roommate is my brother's best friend and he always invites his boss and the stripper over for Thanksgiving dinner at my brother's house. It's funny because my very proper sister-in-law can't stand them, but she ends up fixing them a feast. They are actually very nice people. The stripper is a funny, intelligent person when she isn't at her place of employment or a rock concert.