FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS!!! (Part 1)

That’s right, bitches! This post is coming to you from 30,000 feet above the Plain States on my return from the one and only Las Vegas, Nevada where I spent the last 64 hours, 52 of them awake, for the single greatest bachelor party ever imagined. As a result I can now say unequivocally that I hate Las Vegas - and by “hate” I mean “love”, and by “love” I mean “hate.” Therefore, consider this my love/hate recount of how Sin City welcomed us into to her loving bosom then chewed us up and spit us out.

Let me digress immediately in order to set the scene though. There were eight other dudes, 1. the bachelor: my great friend from college and multi-year roommate, responsible for more damage to my personal property than anyone else; 2. The best man: also from college and also a multi-year roommate of the bachelor as well as a one-year roommate with the bachelor and I in the single greatest habitational situation ever, which is far too complicated to get into here but picture 6 guys, a kegerator, a fisher price basketball hoop, and fewer credit hours than should be legal to subsidize with student loans; 3. Another friend from college and incidentally the Grandfather of the aforementioned greatest habitational situation ever; 4. Another friend from college and current history teacher who had to take the redeye home Saturday night in order to prepare a lesson plan for the first day of classes on Monday, which likely included a lesson on the history of Patron Tequila; 5. A friend of a friend who incidentally was also friends of friends of goddamn near everyone in Las Vegas; 6. The brother of the bride who spent more time gambling after the bars closed and before the sun came up than is healthy for any checking account; and 7 & 8. Two high school friends of the bride and brother of the bride, one who had a strong penchant for dancing any time music was playing, even if it was just in the elevator, and both who spent more time closing down bars than is healthy for the liver.

The expectation for the weekend was set exceptionally high from the start. Four of the guys on this trip, including the bachelor, went on a nearly identical bachelor party almost one year ago to the weekend and that trip ended in someone getting married… to a stranger… after a dare… While none of them would claim a direct affiliation to the now unhappily married husband, it none-the-less set a precedent and as we all know, precedents are only set in order to be met. Otherwise, tattoos, body piercings, and crystal meth addictions wouldn’t exist.

Now on with the story:

I hate spending money. More importantly I hate losing money, which is why I don’t gamble. The kick in the balls about Vegas though, is you don’t need to gamble to lose money because you can’t take a shit without someone waiting to empty your wallet. For instance, I was in Vegas for less than 5 minutes when someone stole money from me. I told the cabbie to take me to The Palms so he promptly pulled out of the airport and took a right onto some street that was conveniently blocked off by a police checkpoint. Thinking they were there for me, I quickly shit my pants then buckled my seat belt as if the cop would have been like, “well son, we were going to arrest you for trafficking 12 kilos of coke but since you’re safely buckled in back there we’ll let you off with a warning this time.” In fact the checkpoint was not set up for me; it was set up for the goddamn cabbie. Apparently turning right out of the airport is not the way to get to the Palms Hotel and Casino. Maybe when I said “The Palms” he thought I meant, “please take me to the desert and bash my face in with a tire iron and steal all my money.” After a lengthy and stern lecture from the cop we made a u-turn and drove directly to the Palms. The fucked up thing about me almost getting taken for an expensive cab ride across Nevada was that it actually was a fucking expensive cab ride because the meter was running the entire time we were being deposed at the checkpoint. Try protesting that with the cab driver who just stares back at you like he doesn’t understand what you’re saying. Welcome to Las-Fucking-Vegas.

I hate douche bags and Las Vegas is like the big steaming turd that attracts the douche bags like flies. Actually, I don’t hate them entirely, I just hate their lives. I like having them around though because they make me feel better about myself. Do you know how to spot the douche bags? They travel in packs of 2 to a thousand and 90% of them have horrible tribal tattoos for tribes that don’t and never did exist unless the barbed wire tribe is an ancient group residing in the Polynesian jungle or some shit. They also have really big, tan muscles, greasy hair and lots of male jewelry. You couldn’t throw up anywhere in Vegas without splashing some chunks on one or more of their Ed Hardy graphic t-shirts.

We went to the Ditch party at the Palms from 9 am to 3 pm on Friday, which is this huge pirate-themed pool party. I’m not sure why it was pirate themed and not just alcohol themed other than douche bags really like pirates or something. I would estimate there were 3,000 people there, 2,900 of which were douche bags or the girls the douche bags were hitting on. At one point there were easily 300 people in one small pool alone and it looked like the fucking Exxon Valdez with all the douche bag hair oil in the water. Green Peace had to send a disaster relief team to pull the little anorexic girls out of the pool and clean them off with Dawn dish soap like they were endangered herrings or some shit.

To be continued...