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August 11, 2008
two vegaii
Whenever I travel to Vegas with a girlfriend, we stay at one of the nicer casinos. We dine at lovely four- and five-star restaurants. We see Cirque. En route, our cabbie will suggest a show we've never heard of, and invariably he will be proven right.
Hitting Vegas by myself (or partially by myself, as was the case this weekend) is an entirely different experience. I stayed at a motel where the bedspread actually crunched. Where when I checked in, I was surrounded by guys with skull tattoos that were seemingly self-applied, and when I checked out at 5am Sunday, I was surrounded by their really, really ugly hookers. We waited for cabs together. In my motel, the maid makes smoking rooms into non-smoking rooms by simply flipping over the ashtry to expose a "no smoking" decal.
There's something to be said about pricing certain elements out. And I said it plenty this weekend.
Meanwhile, the same cabbie who would charm my girlfriend (into, say, seeing a show or going to the Graceland Chapel to get married) is now a bona fide pimp. Seeing a man by himself, he fishes for a business card atop his visor. "I know a girl..."
posted by john at 6:49 AM • permalink