Well, it seems yet another year has gone by and with that comes another trip to Vegas, another chance to look back and say, "Wow that was ridiculous," "Where are my pants?" "Whose pants are these?" (no literally, I seem to have packed someone's pants in my bag, although Paul described my packing style as "goblinlike" upon leaving, so I guess it is not a complete shock I ended up with someone's else's crap in my bag). So, with another Vegas trip comes another semi-half-demi-quasi awful recap of the events.
First some admissions on my part:
1)I was drunking most of the time. Drunking you see, is like drinking, except without all those pretenses of later on saying "Wow! How did I get so drunk?" When drunking, you know what's coming to you. And, as I remarked to Paul and Darrell on our epic journey right after my arrival (more on that later), "It's like I want to experience Vegas all at once...I want to be drunk, I want to be gambling, I want to inappropriately dine only on snack wraps...." Then I took in a real deep breath and choked on some gas fumes.
2) Everyone else was drunking too. So, the recounted stories were about as good as the ones you hear in the short term memory loss ward about what happened a few minutes ago. (Zing. Oh yes, zing)
3) Vegas ruins all sense of time. There are always people up and about, always people having fun, and even more strangely I am convinced both by the new skin tone I have and by seeing it at all times, the sun is literally always up.
So, I arrived in Vegas on Thursday evening after one of my more brilliant and lucky acting performances in a while. I had decided before work on Thursday that I would feign sickness early on in the day in an attempt to get sent home early. Also, in prep for calling in sick on Friday, I had done pretty much all of my Friday work, so I was not that bad of an employee. Anyways, upon arrival on Thursday, my boss asks me how I am doing and I reply, "Oh, not so hot...." and she tells me she too has an awful headache...which I then retort, "Oh, me too...it's like there's a vice on my head..." So, throughout the morning, I act lackadaisical, and eventually around one, get sent home. So, I rush home, grab my stuff, jump in my car (which in prep for the suite we had this year, and due to me driving, I had stocked with 96 beers and 4 handles of liquor), and speed off to Vegas.
I arrived, pulled into the parking garage of the MGM and, using the defective part of my brain, which I am sure would have made me an awful caveman, pulled into the furthest parking spot away. Seriously, the thing went up to Row Q, and I parkedin Row Q, applying zero effort to park any closer. I have noticed this other times too, like when going to a store or movie, I leave whatever venue I was in, and realize I have parked really far away. So, I call Brian's phone, which is answered by Darrell, find out where the room is and grab the box of liquor and begin the trek. And yes, it was a trek. Also, everyone staring at my box of liquor all must have been Vegas first timers....come on people, you do some drinking there no matter who you are.
I finally made it up to the room and it was everything I imagined it would be...well, pretty much like you would think a suite would be...two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a large living room area, a bar, and even a decorative artifact and some fake plants. Once in the room I saw D, Brian and Paul were awakening from naps and Danny was there too. I enlisted Darrell and Paul to come with me to my car for the 96 beers. And thus it was an epic journey. The about Row Q was it did not seem so bad walking towards it, especially empty handed, but the seemingly half marathon journey back with pounds of beer in coolers was not as fun. I guess I should have thought about it.
Back in the room, everyone else began to roll in, and the drinking began....and before the 12 of us went out that night all 96 beers were gone and a good deal of the liquor gone too. It was like whoa. Or something. Then our large gentlemenly crew headed down to Studio 54, the club in the MGM. And by gentlemenly, I mean we kindly would approach any group of women and say something extremely friendly. It was like watching National Geographic specials at times, but sometimes I was not sure if it was more one of the mating specials or one of the hunting ones, or one of the weird ones about insects.
Personally, I stayed in Studio 54 for about 45 minutes as the whole club scene only works so much for me, and plus when I notice that during my attempts at "dancing" if I am either falling over or pulling someone over with me, it might be time to stop the dancing, and the guys that just stand around at these places not dancing are actually a tad creepy. So I made the incredibly wise decision to go gamble. (and I know many are thinking...NO...you were so drunk you doubted your standing abilities and now you want to go throw around money???) But that's just the odd thing, for some reason I am pretty okay at blackjack...probably all those days of my youth playing with Dad for pretzels...sure I never stop soon enough when I am up, but I always be able to win some money. So I throw down my $100 at the $10 a hand table and began playing. I have no real strategy except to win...and most of the time I just would play the $10 hand, but sometimes I would feel it was time and throw out some random, way too large amount, like $260...and win. It was incredible. At one point I was up $1300 on my $100....but then I kept playing and playing and losing and losing....but by the time the dealer shut down the table, I had made it back up to $500...so I got a fine $500 chip and went back up to the room. That was nice.
The next day we wake up, we all start drunking before going to the pool then eventually head down. I went to cash out my winnings and told everyone else I would meet them poolside. However, I wanted to win some more....and stopped and played a little more 21 and won $100 more...which I decided was adequate. Then, the pool. Some stuff happened, it was crazy, it was ridiculous, there was beer flowing readily, everyone who walked by was spoken too, and so much of an impact was made that by Saturday at 6am a girl saw Brian and me and said "You were at the pool," here voice dripping of disdain. We were confused, but whatever. I left the pool a little before everyone else to...yes....go gamble. Long story short, I cashed out about an hour later with $1,100 worth of chips, and walked back up to the room beaming, and once there obviously gloated about my $1,000 chip and let see it and stuff. As I had only put down $100 of my money the previous night, I was pretty happy.
This was the night that was actually dedicated to Adam's bachelor party which Brian had setup...and he did a pretty damn good job...a strech Hummer limo was to pick us up, take us to a strip club, then later take us to Rain (or Pure...I am not really sure...some one word named uber-trendy club) where we would get to walk right in, which is tough for any large group of men to do in a Vegas club.
So, in a moment of hindsight being even better than 20/20 for something I should not have done, I went and cashed in my chips before we left on this escapade. I remember being very giving at the strip club for all in the group...and then we went to Rain/Pure/Whatever, I disliked it off the bat, got lost trying to leave The Palms for about 45 minutes, and the next morning, I had $3. I do know for sure I did not go gamble, because even when drunk, you remember doing that because it requires some focus and usually takes up some large periods of time. I made it back up to the room, where security had to let Adam and me in since we did not have keycards and we had to verify some objects in the room before they let us in....here was what I said, "I have a blue adidas bag straight ahead from the door....and ....and a Christopher Walken t-shirt in it! Yeah...Christopher Walken!...." They verified and let us in.
The next morning I went to use my "temporary" ATM card Citibank had furnished me upon opening my account, but for some reason they still had not gotten me the actual one I needed, and I discovered that good old temporary card had expired. So, no big deal. I know those cash advances on credit cards are foolish, so I was done gambling. Drinking was not a problem since we had so much liquor in the room...but then everyone enjoyed a fine laugh at my expense...or some disbelief. How had I spent $1200 in one night....the best theory was that some lucky cab driver got a great tip for resuing me from the Palms. But, at the very least, I only really lost $100...and even paid Brian $200 towards the room costs...
So, Saturday was yet another day down at the pool, although on this day we spent much more time in the party pool then the lazy river. And I must say things got a little out of control. But not for me. I wwas wasted alright, but every girl there was not putting up with me. Maybe because someone got the fun idea to tell some people that I was a Make a Wish recipient and that this was my wish, or maybe the fact that I was being loud and irreverent most of the time.
We left the pool and I was...ummm...decidedly tired. I passed out on the floor, at one point woke up shivering, then later woke up in a blanket, then later woke up in a bed, until finally I was ready for the world again around 3am....and ready to go out. So, Brian, Mike, Todd, Nick, Danny and myself were wandering around just looking for anything fun in the vicinity. The most we did was talk to some girls eating McDonald's in the food court for a while...and once I had another beer I realized I was literally full of beer and done drinking, and actually pretty tired...so by 7:30 we went back up to the room and things were done. And I finally realized I had the pleasure of driving home that day. Ouch.
Obviously many more things happened, but until I get my reality TV show, no one can really be too sure about what they are. But at least too many groups won't picket against me before then.
TIM's RULES OF LIFE 1-17 COMING LATER IN THE WEEK
BYAH
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