Dear Readers,
As all of you should know—assuming that you were able to watch the comedy hit The Hangover while also being able to take your eyes off of Bradley Cooper’s head full of hair or Kim Jeong’s equally folic filled crotchal region—some guys just can’t handle Vegas. It is too decadent for them. Too lurid. Too alive. Too full of possibility and temptation and gluttony and destruction.
Las Vegas is a lawless land. Figuratively. Literally. Historically. Right down to the most inherent portion of its origin. Right down to the point in time where some mobster or another stood out in the middle of this desolate wasteland and imagined what this piece of swirling sand might one day become. Gambling. Prostitution. Extortion. These things are not just tolerated in Las Vegas; they are encouraged. These things are not just a part of the Vegas experience; these things are the reason that the place came to be.
As all of you should know—assuming that you were able to watch the comedy hit The Hangover while also being able to take your eyes off of Bradley Cooper’s head full of hair or Kim Jeong’s equally folic filled crotchal region—some guys just can’t handle Vegas. It is too decadent for them. Too lurid. Too alive. Too full of possibility and temptation and gluttony and destruction.
Las Vegas is a lawless land. Figuratively. Literally. Historically. Right down to the most inherent portion of its origin. Right down to the point in time where some mobster or another stood out in the middle of this desolate wasteland and imagined what this piece of swirling sand might one day become. Gambling. Prostitution. Extortion. These things are not just tolerated in Las Vegas; they are encouraged. These things are not just a part of the Vegas experience; these things are the reason that the place came to be.
These things are, also, the reason that people trek to Vegas then, now, forever. We don’t go to shop. We don’t go (just) to watch Ray Ramano's fictional brother tell jokes. We don’t go to wonder at the enormity of the Hoover Dam. We go to party. We go to rage. We go to be new and separate people. We go because we are looking for the chance to live in anarchy. We go because Las Vegas is still the place, the only place, where we can find it.
We go because Las Vegas is a desert mirage that changes the rules and regulations that monitor our existence. We go, primarily, because we have no idea how our vacation is going to turn out. We go, ultimately, to find out whether or not we have the chops to make it out alive.
Signs That You Can’t Handle Vegas
1) You Visit a Greater Las Vegas Urgent Care-I’m not saying that this happened to me, but one time a guy I know woke up in Las Vegas convinced that his heart was going to beat out of his chest because he had drank approximately 47 Vodka Red Bulls the night before and was eventually compelled by his desire to not stop breathing to hail a cab and have it take him to an Urgent Care facility some 4 or 5 miles off the strip. Once there, after basically being forced to pass a polygraph in order to convince the admitting nurse that he had not taken PCP some 42 minutes early, this fella had 2 small slits shaved into his copious amount of chest hair and was hooked up to some sort of machine designed to determine whether or not he was going to die before the thing turned on.
So, long story short, if you end your trip in Vegas by being hooked up to a heart monitor that tells you that you have a fairly average heart rate for a morbidly obese 27-year-old in an Urgent Care facility, you cannot handle Vegas. You also might as well start using PCP. At least then you’ll get a less skeptical level of medical attention.
2) You Wear Your Sperry’s Into the Pool-I know what you all are thinking: wait a second, Sperry’s are boat shoes right? So if you can’t wear them into a pool without ruining them what the F kinda shoes can you? Turns out the answer is none. You can’t wear any shoes in the pool. Also it turns out Sperry’s weren’t designed to be worn on a sinking ship whose surface is covered in water, which is a drag. Talk about your all-time levels of false advertising, and false-inferring by a guy I know, a guy who definitely wasn’t me, who thought that you could wear your Sperry’s in the pool and did it for approximately an hour this past Sunday.
The problems that Las Vegas “pool clubs” present are fairly obvious. First, they exist in the middle of the desert and therefore make you want to enter the Serbian urine water they are filled with as often as possible. Second, they are inhabited with patrons who look like they are going to steal your shoes as soon as you enter said Serbian urine water without them on your feet. Classic catch-22. Well, not really. No matter what you do ignore your instincts and take your shoes off before entering the water. If someone wants to catch a scorching case of athlete’s foot by wearing a pair of fetid Sperry’s outside the Encore Beach Club, then let them. You’ll look cooler walking around Steve Wynn’s casino barefoot anyway.
3) You Go To A Double Date At A Strip Club-This is Las Vegas, where they, as people say, play by their own rules. Those rules include legal prostitution and the unprosecuted murder of Fredo Corleone by his older brother Michael. Those rules also include putting trendy Vegas Mexican restaurants directly next to the Sapphire Gentleman’s Club and giving people no warning when they take their girlfriend out to dinner at a spot where their margarita may or may not be served by a certified pole dance. Can you imagine a topless girl making you and your lady friend some tableside guacamole on a romantic night out? No. Me neither. But a guy I know, a guy who certainly isn’t me, definitely can. Because he saw it happen first hand.
Look I respect burritos. And I respect professional dancers. But a burrito covered in cheese that was shredded by a professional dancer during her break from dancing on fat dudes? That’s how people get sick man. That is, I’m fairly certain, America’s number one cause of food related illnesses.
4) You Tip Toy Story Characters With Hooker Coupons-The Vegas Strip, like Time’s Square, is littered with costumed impersonators of famous characters, both fictional and real, who stand out along the strip and take pictures with tourists in an attempt to make a few bucks. Elvis look-a-likes. Dudes dressed up like giant babies. Fake Iron Man’s. Potentially real Iron Man’s, depending on how busy Robert Downey Jr. is that weekend. Grown men in Buzz Lightyear ensembles that do not sound like Tim Allen at all.
The thing about all of these peeps is that they are out there in the 295-degree heat, busting their tails for a daily haul of $9.32 and 14 buttons. They are struggling. They are hustling. They will, likely, never be able to pay off the ridiculous loan they took out just to pay for their apparel in the first place. They don’t need a drunk guy from St. Louis, a guy I know who definitely isn’t me of course, dropping the extensive collection of hooker coupons he procured from the series of mutes that are passing them out on the strip, and obviously not talking, into their tip jar. For one thing, hooker coupons are not money. For another thing, no one can be sure if Buzz Lightyear even has a penis so…you’re just being cruel.
5) You Get Caught in the Handicapped Stall-There is a bathroom next to the MGM Grand’s sports book that has approximately 19 separate stalls in it, one of which is of the large variety usually reserved for handicapped people who, apparently, need more room when taking a poop. So who is to blame when a guy I know, a guy who definitely isn’t me, gets caught taking up the only handicapped stall by an old man with a cane who has evidently been waiting patiently for a butt load of minutes as the guy I know finished his business this past Sunday? The guy I know ( who definitely isn’t me) or the architect of the casino who decided that handicapped people’s digestive habits were none of his concern?
The architect probably. After all he is the guy who designed a CW theme gift shop outside of the food court because he loves the Flash more than he loves disabled people’s ability to drop a deuce in peace now isn’t he.
6) You Order a Zima From the Cocktail Waitress-Just, like, seriously you guys. They don’t even make Zima anymore. I don’t think…
7) You Are Me-Spoiler alert: there is a common thread connecting all of these actions to one another. Spoiler alert #2: it is I. I’m sorry to have tricked you all for so long but like Buffalo Wild Wings pitchmen creating fictional whereabouts during 9/11 and president’s with gigantic noses, it is time for me to come clean. Each of these things I mentioned above didn’t happen to some guy I know; each of these things happened to me. Each of these things also serve as a sign that I have no business traveling to the most sinful place in America, and could easily be the reason that I am currently spending my Wednesday chugging Pepto Bismol and openly wondering whether or not sleeping from 2-4:30 P.M. is explicitly forbidden in my company’s employee handbook.
Vegas is the kind of place that murders your soul. Vegas is the kind of place that I cannot handle. Vegas is the kind of place where people laugh at you for ordering Zima. If that doesn’t tell you everything that you needed to know, then nothing in the previous 1,530 words told you anything at all.
We go because Las Vegas is a desert mirage that changes the rules and regulations that monitor our existence. We go, primarily, because we have no idea how our vacation is going to turn out. We go, ultimately, to find out whether or not we have the chops to make it out alive.
Signs That You Can’t Handle Vegas
1) You Visit a Greater Las Vegas Urgent Care-I’m not saying that this happened to me, but one time a guy I know woke up in Las Vegas convinced that his heart was going to beat out of his chest because he had drank approximately 47 Vodka Red Bulls the night before and was eventually compelled by his desire to not stop breathing to hail a cab and have it take him to an Urgent Care facility some 4 or 5 miles off the strip. Once there, after basically being forced to pass a polygraph in order to convince the admitting nurse that he had not taken PCP some 42 minutes early, this fella had 2 small slits shaved into his copious amount of chest hair and was hooked up to some sort of machine designed to determine whether or not he was going to die before the thing turned on.
So, long story short, if you end your trip in Vegas by being hooked up to a heart monitor that tells you that you have a fairly average heart rate for a morbidly obese 27-year-old in an Urgent Care facility, you cannot handle Vegas. You also might as well start using PCP. At least then you’ll get a less skeptical level of medical attention.
2) You Wear Your Sperry’s Into the Pool-I know what you all are thinking: wait a second, Sperry’s are boat shoes right? So if you can’t wear them into a pool without ruining them what the F kinda shoes can you? Turns out the answer is none. You can’t wear any shoes in the pool. Also it turns out Sperry’s weren’t designed to be worn on a sinking ship whose surface is covered in water, which is a drag. Talk about your all-time levels of false advertising, and false-inferring by a guy I know, a guy who definitely wasn’t me, who thought that you could wear your Sperry’s in the pool and did it for approximately an hour this past Sunday.
The problems that Las Vegas “pool clubs” present are fairly obvious. First, they exist in the middle of the desert and therefore make you want to enter the Serbian urine water they are filled with as often as possible. Second, they are inhabited with patrons who look like they are going to steal your shoes as soon as you enter said Serbian urine water without them on your feet. Classic catch-22. Well, not really. No matter what you do ignore your instincts and take your shoes off before entering the water. If someone wants to catch a scorching case of athlete’s foot by wearing a pair of fetid Sperry’s outside the Encore Beach Club, then let them. You’ll look cooler walking around Steve Wynn’s casino barefoot anyway.
3) You Go To A Double Date At A Strip Club-This is Las Vegas, where they, as people say, play by their own rules. Those rules include legal prostitution and the unprosecuted murder of Fredo Corleone by his older brother Michael. Those rules also include putting trendy Vegas Mexican restaurants directly next to the Sapphire Gentleman’s Club and giving people no warning when they take their girlfriend out to dinner at a spot where their margarita may or may not be served by a certified pole dance. Can you imagine a topless girl making you and your lady friend some tableside guacamole on a romantic night out? No. Me neither. But a guy I know, a guy who certainly isn’t me, definitely can. Because he saw it happen first hand.
Look I respect burritos. And I respect professional dancers. But a burrito covered in cheese that was shredded by a professional dancer during her break from dancing on fat dudes? That’s how people get sick man. That is, I’m fairly certain, America’s number one cause of food related illnesses.
4) You Tip Toy Story Characters With Hooker Coupons-The Vegas Strip, like Time’s Square, is littered with costumed impersonators of famous characters, both fictional and real, who stand out along the strip and take pictures with tourists in an attempt to make a few bucks. Elvis look-a-likes. Dudes dressed up like giant babies. Fake Iron Man’s. Potentially real Iron Man’s, depending on how busy Robert Downey Jr. is that weekend. Grown men in Buzz Lightyear ensembles that do not sound like Tim Allen at all.
The thing about all of these peeps is that they are out there in the 295-degree heat, busting their tails for a daily haul of $9.32 and 14 buttons. They are struggling. They are hustling. They will, likely, never be able to pay off the ridiculous loan they took out just to pay for their apparel in the first place. They don’t need a drunk guy from St. Louis, a guy I know who definitely isn’t me of course, dropping the extensive collection of hooker coupons he procured from the series of mutes that are passing them out on the strip, and obviously not talking, into their tip jar. For one thing, hooker coupons are not money. For another thing, no one can be sure if Buzz Lightyear even has a penis so…you’re just being cruel.
5) You Get Caught in the Handicapped Stall-There is a bathroom next to the MGM Grand’s sports book that has approximately 19 separate stalls in it, one of which is of the large variety usually reserved for handicapped people who, apparently, need more room when taking a poop. So who is to blame when a guy I know, a guy who definitely isn’t me, gets caught taking up the only handicapped stall by an old man with a cane who has evidently been waiting patiently for a butt load of minutes as the guy I know finished his business this past Sunday? The guy I know ( who definitely isn’t me) or the architect of the casino who decided that handicapped people’s digestive habits were none of his concern?
The architect probably. After all he is the guy who designed a CW theme gift shop outside of the food court because he loves the Flash more than he loves disabled people’s ability to drop a deuce in peace now isn’t he.
6) You Order a Zima From the Cocktail Waitress-Just, like, seriously you guys. They don’t even make Zima anymore. I don’t think…
7) You Are Me-Spoiler alert: there is a common thread connecting all of these actions to one another. Spoiler alert #2: it is I. I’m sorry to have tricked you all for so long but like Buffalo Wild Wings pitchmen creating fictional whereabouts during 9/11 and president’s with gigantic noses, it is time for me to come clean. Each of these things I mentioned above didn’t happen to some guy I know; each of these things happened to me. Each of these things also serve as a sign that I have no business traveling to the most sinful place in America, and could easily be the reason that I am currently spending my Wednesday chugging Pepto Bismol and openly wondering whether or not sleeping from 2-4:30 P.M. is explicitly forbidden in my company’s employee handbook.
Vegas is the kind of place that murders your soul. Vegas is the kind of place that I cannot handle. Vegas is the kind of place where people laugh at you for ordering Zima. If that doesn’t tell you everything that you needed to know, then nothing in the previous 1,530 words told you anything at all.
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