Riches to Rags

A true tale of riches to rags.

No, not the life story of Willie Aames.

My life the last four days.

Started on Thursday, when I was at lunch and got a frantic call from the gym. Toilets were overflowing. Water everywhere. Great. It was a booby trap, turns out, but symbolic. 'Cuz when I walked in the door to find Jenn holding a sign that said "Vegas Baby!" - a birthday getaway gift/surprise - I almost dropped a deuce.

I must admit, I'm not really a Vegas kind of guy (I could, however, easily live in a hut on a beach and run a taffy stand). While not exactly frugal, I'm not a colossal fan of giving dough away with mind-numbing speed, a favorite past time of Sin City. The ever-present smoke that billows throughout the casinos doesn't provide the greatest of allure to an asthmatic, and the never-ending cache of lights and bells and dings and blings reminds me of watching my Aunt Rita play ping-pong while on a meth bender.

But four days away with no kids and no towels to wash and no alarm clocks, three nights in a plush Caesar's Palace suite with nothing to lose, did appeal to what little "Swingers" kid that lurks within. Plus, and I know I'm biased here, I think Jenn is far better-looking than Jon Favreau.

The following are, in my opinion, five of the dreariest activities one can endeavor:

5. Dentist
4. DMV
3. Listening to someone else describe "this crazy dream I had last night"
2. Looking at photos from someone else's luxurious vacation
and
1. Hearing, in vivid detail, about someone else's vacation

So I'll spare you the frame-by-frame replay. But here are a few observations from our 4 days in Sin City.

* A $12 drink tastes much better than a $4 drink; however, it lasts no longer.

* Multiple Choice: It is indeed possible for an 84-year-old woman to:
(a) Sit at the same slot machine for seven hours.
(b) Allow her cigarette ash to reach the neighborhood of four inches, both defying gravity and making for a neat party trick
(c) Glance at me 73 times in a five-minute span if I dared to win as much as a quarter
(d) All of the above

Answer: D

* The guys and gals of Cirque Du Soleil's "Love," a 90-minute aaahh-feat set to Beatles tunes, are the greatest athletes I've ever seen. My reasoning is such: I spent five years as a sportswriter and have watched sports since I was old enough to be propped by one of my three brothers in front of a TV; however, while I can envision one of the Cirque artists - male or female - running a crisp down and out or going baseline for a reverse layup or stretching a single into a double, I simply can't see Terrell Owens, Kobe Bryant or A-Rod doing a double-back flip from a highwire into a barrel 30 feet below, all while listening to arguably the Beatles's worst song - "Yellow Submarine." I mean, these folks were freaks - but not the bearded lady kind...the good kind.

Note: There were several children in the cast of "Love." They did nothing. No flips, no spins, no leaps. Just a jig or two. And while they were cute as hell, I haven't seen such child exploitation since "Webster."

* Caught Tony Bennett on Saturday night. He'd fallen. No, for a 127-year-old, the guy still has his pipes. Plus, how often can you say you drank an $18 martini while watching Tony Bennett on a Saturday night?

* My wife has a neat trick. She can camp at a craps table for two hours, hoop and holler on several occasions, high five her neighbors, flash a double Hook 'Em Horns sign, scream "You Da Man!" to a hot shooter, shake her booty, drink four sips from one beer....and win three bucks. God love her.

* The stench/film that one leaves Vegas with can best be described as a cornucopia of zinc, Pall Mall, Funions and Mr. "Yellow Pits" Murdock, my eighth-grade Life Science teacher.

* Most people are nice. Whether it be curse or blessing, I've always been the type to strike up a conversation with most anyone, especially in vacation mode. I'm interested in people's stories, what can I say? In doing so, my careful research has found that 96 percent of people are quite pleasant, and the other four percent are either (a) hard of hearing; (b) simply too busy; or (c) dicks.

* Some heroes fall hard. While killing time before our alleged Sunday evening flight - more of that in a moment - we were strolling through the Caesar's Forum (read: mall) and browsing at $900 purses. Came across a sports memorabilia shop. I duck in and, there, no more than five feet away, sat a bored, bloated guy who happens to own more base hits than any player in baseball history. Pete Rose, banished from the Hall of Fame for gambling, slouching in a card shop in Vegas signing baseballs on a Sunday afternoon for $20 a pop. Cruel, sad irony.

* Finally, if you want a 4 a.m. wakeup call from Floyd the Night Clerk, then that really means he'll pound on your door at 4:12 a.m.

See, we were supposed to return to reality on Sunday evening. Southwest Airlines had other ideas. A cancelled flight (and switch to a Monday 6a flight - ouch) later, we found ourselves the honored guests of the Ambassador Travel Lodge, which, as you might guess, is quite a roll down the stairs of luxury from the Palace Tower Suites. Nevertheless, we're simple folk, and there are several amenities of the A.T.L, which include:

1. A window unit that sounds like a Harley at full throttle...but not until you insert you room key into the control panel. (Huh?)

2. Comforters comprised of horse hair.

3. A coupon for $10 off on your first Pole Dancing lesson.

4. The water pressure of an eye dropper.

5. A view that includes a truck stop, a convenience store and a couple of whores.

6. And Floyd (see Rose, Pete - without the hits). Floyd, quite possibly Tony Bennett's grandfather, couldn't get the 'damn wake-up call system to work." But there he was, just 12 minutes past our requested time, hammering on the door like a 14-year old boy behind closed doors with a Speigel's catalog, a proud member of the Travel Lodge Night Clerk Hall of Fame.

Some other stuff happened on our trip, but you know what they say about Vegas...