We arrived via a limo and we left in a limo. By any stretch of the imagination, when visiting Sin City, The City that Never Sleeps, and the Gambling Capital of the World, I think that is considered a success. Vegas oozes money. Of course, oozes assumes money goes both ways, instead it feels like an instant tap to the wallet. Gone are the days of free drinks in an attempt to grease the wallet to keep it open. Now, drinks empty the wallet almost as fast as the slot machines! At one point, two drinks came to twenty-eight dollars! Two! Who can afford to gamble, with prices like that?
Thank goodness we are only in town to celebrate a birthday and not trying our luck at gambling. I've got no luck when it comes to gambling. My theory on that, everything finds level. While I have zero luck when it comes to winning financially, it's only because I win at everything else, parents, friends, and pets. Since everything evens out, I'd rather have it this way, then winning a few bucks.
I really wanted this to be a surprise trip for CT's day, but had to fess up and tell her prior to us leaving town. For one, I didn't want to be responsible for packing her stuff. Luckily, I did because, it never would have occurred to me that the formula for shoes is three times the number of days in Vegas for women! So, I dodged that bullet, maybe my luck is changing. Hmmm. Second, it's just to hard keeping a secret all to myself for so long. Last year's birthday trip was a complete surprise, but because other people were involved, it made the secret easier to keep while in constant communication planning. It was easier just to spill the beans.
The limo was a surprise that CT had no idea of. As we left the plane, she asked "So, we are just going to take a shuttle to the the hotel?" Smiling and nodding back, thinking to myself, this is going to work out perfect. While the scene wasn't right out of the movies of walking to the door and seeing a guy holding a sign up with our name's on it, it's only because the stupid airline forced us to check our bags (I'll save the rant, but won't be flying the nickle and dime airline Spirit again). He did have a sign, took our bags, and opened the door for us. Awww, this is how the one percenters do it. Champagne wishes and off we go. Even though in Vegas, I still couldn't bring myself to drink champagne at 8 in the morning.
This trip was never about the gambling, but it is the story. After exploring and generally getting a feel for the city, we decided on which show we wanted to watch, purchased our tickets grabbed some lunch, then it was nothing more than a waiting game until later that night exploring the vastness of the strip. What do you do when you have time to kill in Vegas? You know. CT is the typical woman, something shiny always catches her eye and in every casino we visited, the slot machines were calling her with their sparkle. I knew I wouldn't be able to keep her away from them the whole weekend, but finally gave in and let her play, telling her should could "waste" two dollars, that was my limit on such a silly thing for the value.
Two pulls later (maybe it was actually four), her two dollars were down to .34 cents. Unsatisfied with the machine she picked, she called it quits. In my head, all the time thinking she'll be done with a couple more pulls. Thirty-four cents isn't going to last very long Vegas.
After our show, which was a good time, our glitz matched the sparkle of Vegas. While GQ magazine is never going to call me, it is fun dressing up and pretending to have some style once in a while. CT looked like a damn model. Part of the fun is people watching and I did expect the later crowd to give off this vibe of a high class night club the whole night. Instead of almost everybody dressed to impress, it was as if a dinner party got dropped into a Walmart. Just a really odd mix of people in the city for various reasons. Bachelor parties, Bachelorette parties, people like us just out to have some fun dressed sexy, then vast majority of the slogan t-shirt wearing public thinking with one spin they are gonna to hit it big. I suppose I should be happy that at least I didn't see any in sweatpants, but then again I probably just didn't look hard enough.
Before we retired for the night, the sparkle called CT for a couple more pulls, down to ten cents! One more pull and it will be over. Good thing that limo is prepaid, otherwise we'll be leaving Vegas broke! Then it happened, she started to win a few times. Soon, she was up to $1.02 and coming that close to despair, to this now substantial cushion, she decided to call it a night.
The City that Never Sleeps, well I'm calling BS. Not much is open before 10 am and the only real activity are workers maintaining the shine in the early hours. Sure the machines are still running, but that doesn't count in my book.
The second day in Vegas is one of those things that I'll always remember, for the rest of my life. Here comes the back story, I don't want to brag, but my wife is gorgeous. She just is. Case in point, the night before, every couple we'd pass, both sets of eyes were on CT. Locked on. If there was enough time before they'd pass, which wasn't often, it was almost humorous if their attention could be pulled from her beauty. If so, immediately they had to check me out to see who she has with. My guess, in an attempt to analyse the situation, if I were some super rich tycoon, athlete, famous person type. That alone makes me feel good and appreciate how lucky I am. This morning however, I received a compliment like no other. The server at breakfast took a long hard look at CT his first time seeing her. I know CT didn't notice and I doubt he even realized he did it, but by the look on his face I could tell that time almost stopped for him for those brief few seconds. On the surface, I expected it to be one of those things I'd just smile about later, knowing that only I witnessed it. He made some small talk as we placed our order, but just before we turned to leave, he gives me a good long look and I can tell he's debating saying something, then it finally bursts from his mouth "King Kong's got nothing on you". I know, what a strange thing to say. But immediately, I knew what he meant and I couldn't help smiling as he offered me a fist bump. Pure admiration for the hot blonde I had with me, even King Kong would be envious. Made my morning, may even have made my trip. Damn right, King Kong's got nothing on me!
Later that night, CT convinced me to play a dollar in the slots. We were in a different casino and her $1.02 ticket wouldn't work here, so I gave her credit and issued her another dollar as well. My luck is so bad at slots, as if you didn't know already. Being it was night, the place was packed and it was difficult to find two machines together. She also couldn't play the machine she wanted to play, so we combined our modest funds and called it a night with $1.34 to our name.
First thing in the morning, her machine was open. Turns out, it must have worked very hard the night before giving out all the winnings because quickly dwindled away more of our money. Still not deterred, CT decided since it was our last day she had one other machine she'd been eyeing up and felt as though it would get our remaining thirty-four cents (if I spell it out, it will last longer, right?).
We get to her special machine, only to find that it's a minimum of twenty five cents to play. Unacceptable, when we only have $.34, so she finds a penny slot machine close by and this will be our make or break us spot. Not sure if she wanted to see it for herself, or it was guilt of her blowing our hard earned four dollars to this point, but she wanted us to take turns playing. She'd make a bet and play, then I'd make a bet and play. Knowing I wasn't lucky, I'd only bet a penny at a time. She would sometimes bet one, sometimes five, sometimes more. You know how I said things even out in this world? Well, I think we found the secret of Vegas. I'd loose with every bet I'd make, but she started winning with hers. When we'd lose, it was only a penny at time. When she'd win, it was for bigger and bigger amounts. It wasn't long and our $.34 cents grew to over five dollars! We were officially ahead of Vegas. I wanted to run as fast as we could with our winnings. CT on the other had found her addiction, winning.
At one point she hit some kind of jackpot that allowed us to roll dice in the game. Provided we didn't hit a seven, points kept getting added to our score based on what we rolled. By the time we finally hit a seven, which of course it was me who finally rolled it and stopped our streak, we were up to $26! Turning $4 (well, really $.34 at this point) into $26, I half expected the pit bosses to come escort us from the casino. While I wanted to tell CT to stop, I also realized we were now playing with casino money. Her goal was $30, if she hit that she was done. Turns out our luck didn't continue, but we must have played for a good hour before giving back some of our winnings, but cashing out with $15.
While not as funny as The Hangover or as interesting as 21, that's our story of taking down Vegas. While our winnings barely covered a drink, it felt as though we conquered the town. On a side note, in two and a half days in Vegas, we walked a marathon in distance, so this may have been the hardest earned winnings as well!
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