Not to much to write about today but after reading ESPN.com’s Bill Simmon’s column yesterday on his most recent trip to Vegas I thought I’d share a few stories from my Vegas trips. First of all, any story that comes for a Vegas trips is automatically 10 times funnier if you’ve been to Vegas and can relate to it with a story of your own. Second, stories are never as funny if you aren’t there, but they do make you appreciate the scene in Vegas.
I’ve been to Vegas three times. Once with the family when I was like 12 (obviously no big stories from that trip), once with the family when I was 19 and another time three summers ago when I was 21. In total, I’ve been kicked out of a casino three times, twice from the same one on two separate occasions.
I’ll start with the more boring and move to the more entertaining. When I was 19, my brother (21 at the time) and I were just playing some of those video poker machines. We were at some rinky dink casino (no hotel) across the street from The Mirage that gave a way a free frozen margarita. I used my brother’s idea to get one for me. A few minutes later, brother tried to get one himself and the guy said, “really? You just got one.” He wouldn’t give my brother a drink since you were only allowed one a day. Kind of funny. As we sat and played video poker, a security guard came up and asked us for ID’s. Needless to say, we were asked to leave.
After leaving that place, we were wondering the streets trying to pick the next place to go. Since we were young, we didn’t have much money to gamble away and I’m not a big gambler to begin with. As we walked the strip, we saw the greatest sign in the world. Outside the Barbary Coast there was a huge sign “ALL DRINKS $1.”
We couldn’t believe it. Inside we went. My brother went up and bought two draft beers. Down those went and next up was two rum and Cokes. Down those went and we were only out $4. We ended up meeting a wedding party from Canada and sitting at the little lounge with them. We were sitting at one of those small tables no bigger than a foot with big chairs around it.
After a few hours of drinking and shots, one of the Canadians stood on his chair, dove across the table and tackled my brother. Somehow, no drinks were spilled and we all laughed about it. About 10 minutes later, he did the same thing but tackled me. Well, a few minutes later, I decided to take revenge. I stood on my chair, drove across the table and tackled the Canadian. We laughed, lingered on the ground a little while catching our breath. By this time there were tables and chair knocked over all over the place and no one else left in the lounge.
A security guard came over and basically said “what the hell are you doing! Get out of here.” The weird part is he only kicked my brother and me out. Oh well, by that point it was like 4am anyway so that was OK by us. We picked up another beer on the way back to our hotel (got to love the no open container law) and then had to slam the beer just outside or room while we heard our mom waking up for the morning. I think we got about an hour or two of sleep that night.
Two summers later I was back but this time with two buddies, Jon and JP. We were on a cross country road trip to LA where I was going to be staying for the summer. We obviously had to stop in Vegas. The first night was relatively quite (by Vegas standards since we got in so late), the second night was the memorable night.
We hopped around from casino to casino, gambling and drinking beers starting at about 1:00 p.m.. By 6, we were inside the Barbary Coast slamming drinks. At one point, Jon and JP wanted to go gamble at the Bellagio, just to say they had. For whatever reason, I got separate from them. I called them and I thought they said they were at Paris. I couldn’t find them and I thought they were playing a joke on me. Being drunk, instead of laughing, I got mad. A good hour later, after walking around a bunch of casinos all by myself, I finally found them outside the Barbury Coast. We sat outside bitching at each other for a while. Finally, we were like why are we yelling at each? This is Vegas, we’re drunk and we are acting like a bunch of girls. Celebrating our rekindled friendship we walked back into the Barbary Coast. JP was in front of me so I thought it would be a good idea to jump on his back. Well, he couldn’t hold me up and we both fell on the sidewalk. Instead of getting up, we just laid there. People were actually walking over us as we just laughed.

The place where memories are made.
We ended up meeting a few girls at the lounge (the same one I got kicked out of two years earlier). They asked us if we wanted to do a Yager Bomb with them. Being the cheapo college students we were, we said “no, that’s probably out of our price range.” They responded with, “No, it’s a dollar too.” Well then, Game on. After that it was safe to say the night was a blur. Who can say no to a $1 Yager Bomb?
As the night worn on, JP and Jon wanted to play some more roulette. While they were playing, I walked around like an aimless drunk. I decided it was getting about that time to leave. I walked up behind Jon, who was wearing a red shirt, slapped him hard on the back hard, I mean real hard, and said “let’s go.” Only when Jon turned around, it wasn’t Jon. It was a dealer who always was wearing red.
“Oh, crap,” was the only thing going through my head. Then I saw a guy in suit, behind the tables start walking towards me. Before he got to me I said, “I know, I’m out of here,” and basically threw myself out. I sat outside for like 3 minutes then came back. Afraid of getting caught, I hid behind a slot machine trying to get JP and Jon’s attention. Finally, I did and we were out.
We walked outside and to our amazement, it was light. Turns out it was about 6:00 a.m. then. Got to love no clocks in a casino. We grab a cab and head to my friend’s house where we were staying. Just a few minutes into the ride we realize we don’t have enough money left to get to her house. The cab driver said she’d knock a few bucks off the price if someone mooned the strip. Well 15 plus hours of drinking in me that sounded like fun. I hop out of the cab and drop my pants for a good 10 seconds well the cars around me start honking their horns and I return with a wiggle and a wave.
Some how we eventually made it home, slept no more than 4 hours and were back on the road to cap our trip to LA. Can’t wait for our next trip to Vegas.
Got to love Vegas.
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