Drink Rum

OK, I hadn’t planned on this taking over a week to compile, but I’ve been sick and my attention span hasn’t been up to the task. Anyway…

Devin and I met up after my long, tedious flight. We were both hungry (I hadn’t eaten that day) and wandered around the Imperial Palace to find a place to get a quick bite to eat. I saw a sign for the Burger Palace and we opted for that. I was horribly disappointed that I did not get to see that big headed king from Burger King commercials. I mistakenly assumed that Burger King lived in Burger Palace and I could have not been more wrong. They should remarket that place as Lowlife Palace. But then again I wouldn’t have eaten there if they called it that.

Even the dumpy dive fooderies in Las Vegas do everything overboard. I ordered the chicken finger combo. It was $7.99, which is kinda pricey for chicken fingers served by a guy in a paper hat. But they delivered unto me a cardboard board that had at least two pounds of chicken in it and a side of 4,000 calories of French fries. There were four “fingers”, but each one was basically a chicken breast. I ate about half of it before I wanted to die. The BBQ sauce there was the best.

Devin observed that if we stayed in the Burger Palace for the whole weekend, we could say that we were the coolest people we saw during the trip. He was right. I’m not very high on the social ladder of the world, but this place was full of either white teens who thought that they were gangsta rappers and a group of folks that could have probably been described “kid touchers”. Oh and there was another 500 woman. I think she dove in the trash after my uneaten chicken. I didn’t leave her any sauce though. Tough break.

During dinner and catching up, I got a call from Duane. He and Justin were downstairs. Since Justin was one of our two bachelors for the party, we could now go party. Devin, who is Justin’s brother, and I went to the check in and met up with the guys. I mistook a fat lady for Duane. Duane had dropped about 50 pounds since I’d last seen him and that threw me off. Justin also appeared to have grown a few inches vertically in the three years or so since I’d seen him. Sadly, at 5’10 I was saddled with the title of “Shortest Guy” in our crowd. But I put gel in my hair so I also got the title of “Tallest Hair”. After that we stopped giving me titles. I gave myself a few secret titles when I was alone of getting a lap dance. Word.

We wandered up to the Duane and Justin’s room and helped them unpack. By help I mean sat on the bed and did nothing. At one point Justin went into the bathroom to freshen up (the polite language for tossing a deuce) and Devin decided to build a fortification outside of the bathroom door out of one of those folding luggage stands that you find in hotel rooms and never use. I think Justin was tipped to the fact that something is up due to the laughter that went instantly quiet when he flushed and was replaced with many “sssshhhh’s”. For a moment I envisioned Justin coming out of the bathroom and tripping straight into the wall and putting his head through it. That would have been entertaining to get a stripper to dance on him. But alas, Justin just stuck his head out and shook it at us as we collectively sighed in disappointment.

Sitting in the room trying to trip Justin got boring (as it’s wont to do) so we hit the casino. Mike was almost there so we decided against gambling until he got there. We headed over to the Tiki Palace Bar and Pub for a few drinks. I had my old standby rum and coke and it made me instantly ill. I don’t know if it was lack of sleep, a bad mix with pain killers, the fact that I had had neither caffeine nor sugary soda in 6 weeks. I finished off the drink, but felt like death. I enjoyed a water for my second round.

Mike called and told us to meet him at group check in by a big tree. I figured that meant he was outside or at the wrong hotel because there weren’t any trees in the Imperial Palace. We had pagodas, dragons, cocktail waitresses, casino games, and cocktail waitresses, but no trees. We wandered around for a few minutes and finally asked a security guard for directions. When I approached him he went for his gun, but turned out to be helpful after he was sure I didn’t mean to rob the casino. Mike was wandering as well and we bumped into each other near the elevator bank. Back up to the rooms to get Mike settled.

Here is where we determined that the elevators were dreadfully slow. I have no idea why. My only guess is that the “overload” syndrome was repeating itself on every floor. We did find a secret set of elevators that moved quickly, but after I shouted, “Hey, these elevators over here go fast!” everyone swarmed to them and soon they were just as bad as the main ones.

Earlier when we were in Devin’s room we’d noticed that if the lights were out, the purple neon lights outside would cast two purple square light patterns on the wall and they were great for doing hand puppets. It reminded me, and I made this observation then, of the spelling/pronunciation game from Sesame Street or the Electric Company where to heads were silhouetted on the screen facing each other and one would say “c” and the other replied “at” and then both said “Cat”. When we went in with Mike, I told the joke again. I do that, but Mike hadn’t heard it and it was funny regardless. Mike and Devin decided to give it a try and stepped into the purple light to cast their shadows on the wall.

“P”, said Mike.

“A”, said Devin.

“What the hell?” said everyone else.

“Pah”

That was the word they came up with. From that point on anytime anyone did anything silly or boneheaded it drew a “paaaaaaaaah” from the group.

The electric company games were fun, but we came for adult games and Trix are for kids. That doesn’t make sense, but I don’t care. I needed to work that in somewhere.

Craps was the game of choice that evening, but the $5 minimum table at Imperial Palace was full. They had a couple of $10 tables but that was a bit pricey. I figured that we could find better so we headed up the street in search of cheap tables on a crowded weekend. If you’ve ever been to Las Vegas on a summer weekend you already know how this is going to play out.

After walking around for quite awhile… long enough to piss off my knee and make my little toe nail cut the toe next to it on my right foot, we gave up. We went back to the Imperial Palace. En route we did have a look at to Las Vegas strip icons. One was the Mirage volcano eruption that was met with a universal “ok” from the group. The second was the illegal immigrants who stand between the casinos and flick porno cards at you. They stand there and flick the cards against their arms and when you look to see what the flicky flicky is all about, they hand you a card with a naked chick on it and a phone number. Most of the cards have different girls on them and you can make a game out of it. I call it Porno the Gathering. The “hand” I got dealt was pretty strong. I had a pair of Samanthas and a swarthy Jessica. According to the card, Jessica was “wild” so I made her a Samantha too. My three Sams beat everyone. Justin didn’t get “dealt” any cards so I gave a few of mine to him. They make great souvenirs to take back to your fiancé.

I had to go back, once again, to my hotel room to change shoes. My toe was bleeding and so I needed to clean that up and put on some better shoes for standing around and playing craps. As I sat on the bed my body told to lie down and go to sleep. No, I said. No. I would go downstairs and be a gambling degenerate. I stood up, dusted myself off and proceeded to the elevator.

In the next installment… I promise… there will actually be some gambling.