This is 21-year-old me trying to make bangs work even back then. Didn't work then, still doesn't work now. *Shakes head*
When I turned 21 we took trip to Vegas! Woooohooo! Party! Best Trip Ever!! Right?!?! Uh, yeah, nope. If there ever was a cursed, ill-fated, lametastic trip to Las Vegas award then this one would have been a shoo in for First Prize!
Let me set the scene. Let’s go way back in the day to the early 2000s. My 21st birthday was finally upon me I was going to head straight down to Vegas and live it up! And by live it up, I really meant do some gambling with a drink or two here or there, maybe dance at a Vegas hotspot or two, but mostly GO SHOPPING!!!
Musically, it was the time of Rob Thomas & Santana with Smooth, and the days of Blink 182 with All the Small Things, Destiny’s Child with Say My Name, and of course Eminem with The Real Slim Shady. Oh and who could forget The Thong Song courtesy of Sisqo “ She had dumps like a truck, truck, truck…”.This was the type of stuff getting airplay at the time. Although, pretty much the whole drive there we listened to a lot of Cake.
It was a group of just girls, no one over 22 with one 18-year-old ball & chain. Just us and the open road from our home in innocent Salt Lake City all the way to Sin City Nevada. And my friends had all offered to drive so I didn’t even have to take my car. Score!
I have full on travel window video to this song through the canyon in Arizona. Oh yeah! Oh and if you decide to read this whole post you can totally play this song the whole time as it was the theme song of the trip.
Our adventure began at the now shut down and imploded Stardust Casino and Hotel. It was roasty-toasty-sunshiney and hot in Vegas and we were happily checked in (squeely and lamely filled with excitement at the weekend in store for us) and headed to our room.
And it was all good until we got there. Where mind you, it turned out to be one king size bed and not the two we had requested online and well, there were no other rooms available. And, no, they didn’t have any rollaway beds – sorry bitches. Now immediately there are several catty /bitchy/whiney disagreements over who is sleeping in the bed. This resulted in me, being a lover and not a fighter, sleeping in two chairs pushed together on my birthday weekend. Where in the hell was my backbone? I don’t think I grew one until at least age 27. Oh, did I mention our AC was also not working? This enhanced the UFC-like environment in our room. After the maintenance man came to work on it for the 4th time we just gave up and moved to the acceptance phase that our room would be a hellish inferno.
Well, what does one do when they are chillaxing in a hellish inferno? They go and buy alcohol of course! So I pranced down to the hotel gift shop/store with my best friend D. After way too much time perusing our options we settled on a big ol’ case of Pina Colota Wine Coolers. Oh yes, we were very classy and well, had no idea what we were doing when it came to drinking. So we thought this to be an excellent beverage of choice. We plopped them up on the counter and I pulled up my wallet to pay, very excited to present my ID for the first time as an adult. The old lady at the counter, who was smoking a cigarette, talking on her cell phone, and literally had curlers in her hair, just rang up our stuff, took our money and shooed us out the door without carding either one of us! And, back then I swear to you, we probably looked to be about 16-years–old back then. All we could think of on the walk back to our room was that we must be old hags now. Sayonara youth!
Since we had the 18-year-old girl with us we decided not to go to any clubs/bars since she could not get in. And since we were youngins well, we didn’t really know what we were missing. Nobody really cared. So we went out with the camcorder and decided to make a bit of a documentary with each and every sight to see in Vegas on the strip. You know, the Treasure Island Show, The Volcano exploding on the strip, every bit of the New York New York casino, the grass/bush bikes at the Harley Davidson joint, all of it. And not much of the more important stuff, uh, us. Duh. I mean we were in it here and there, but it was mostly full of the sights and lights. Lame now that all of us have been to Vegas many times, but now we are no longer 21-year-old spring chickens.
After about 7-hours of walking and all of the wine coolers long gone we decided to go back to the hotel. No one was drunk, no one was even close to drunk. Hello, where was the big 21st birthday party? Someone could have at least thrown up for heaven’s sake! We ordered a room service pizza, and it sucked. It was like 60% white non-cooked onion. AND no one (who all offered to drive so I wouldn’t have to) would TAKE ME SHOPPING!!! No matter how much I begged and pleaded this whole weekend.
The next day was filled with a trip to a restaurant in which my camera was lost (we went to walk out to the car and I realized I didn’t have it, we walked back in and it was not at our table. Waitress and wait staff saw nothing, yeahrightmotherfuckers) and where I learned that Chocolate Alcoholic drinks are gross and never to try them. I’d post the photos now, but oh yeah, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas when a restaurant steals your camera.
We spent the afternoon at the pool where one of the girls often commented that I looked great in my swimsuit “for someone who had a kid and could never be really skinny again”. Thanks for the ego boost homie!! Note - I weighed 124 lbs so I was basically a whale, right? And again still, no one TOOK ME SHOPPING!!!
Long story not really short, one of my friends spent the most of the weekend calling our customer line at work to try and get the Mormon guy she liked on the phone, I was on my cell with Joey and Troy crying pretty much the whole time because it sucked AND I lost my camera and I’d rather be at home for my birthday where people were nice to me/would take me shopping, my best friend and her coworker pal were arguing most of the time, this other girl took off to party with her “boyfriend’s cousin’s uncle” since we were so lame, and so it goes without speaking that it pretty much was the most awesome trip of all time.
And for the grand finale, my best friend and said coworker got in a huge fight in St. George where on the way home (Obviously, I went running like an escaped convict for the outlet stores when we stopped for gas because NO ONE HAD TAKEN ME SHOPPING!). I was pretty sure that D was going to stomp this chicky into the ground. This resulted in me grabbing our luggage (since it was the coworkers car) and wondering to myself where we could find out the prices on a flight home to good ol’ SLC & “how dangerous is hitchhiking, really?”, but eventually came to resolution with us driving home in complete silence and no glorious beat down story to tell. And my tears streamed quietly behind my sunglasses.
Moral of the story – only travel with those you know well and have a similar vision with for the trip. Mass quantities of friends of friends really don’t mix well in one place. Watch your camera closely. Put your foot down so you get what you want especially on your birthday. Oh and chocolate and alcohol go together about as good as my chichuahua and his ginger-cat-nemesis.
Oh and of course, this last thing: Ooh dat dress so scandalous...
*** Note - I am still very good friends with everyone who went on this defunct trip with the exception of the coworker of D. I don't think anyone really stayed friends with her, she was a bit of an odd duck. What can I say?
