Tuesday, December 23, 2014: Day Eight of Thirteen

I woke up insanely early today in my comfy Cosmopolitan bed and have what I recognize as an uncontrollable urge to go degenerate gambling.  I want to gamble.  I want to gamble NOW.  I want to put every dollar I own into the pretty machines downstairs.

I have been pretty good for days, but that was only because I messed up so badly on day one that I had a choice to either continue doing things that would send me to the ATM, or to slow down gambling.  I chose the latter but I am CRAVING a binge session on video poker.

The sun isn’t even up yet and I am FIENDING.   What to do?  I don’t really understand how I came up with this plan, but I decided to: Leave all my money in the room safe, walk to Walgreens across the Strip, get a Diet Pepsi, get $40 cash back and use that and only that to gamble.  It seems like a pretty good idea.  If I win, great.  If I lose, the walk back to the room to get more money might cool me off.  Right?

I go to Walgreens.  It is only around 4:30 am.  Some guy is shopping, I mean really shopping.  He has a full grocery cart with lots of food and tons of paper utensils and stuff.   He is obviously on line in front of me at the register.  There is one person working because it is 4:30 am and everyone in the world is asleep.   The cashier had the most pathetic attempt at a mohawk I have ever seen.  I had plenty of time standing there to critique it.  It was all floopy and had WAY too much hair product dragging the spikes down.  It looked like he was dipped upside down in a vat of bacon grease.  Hello guy, egg whites.  Try them, they work.  Amateur.

As I sat there growing more annoyed with this entire thing, one of the guy’s 98374234897238 items will not scan.  Price check!   Argh.

Finally, finally, FINALLY it is my turn and Walgreens only lets you get $20 cash back.  I need $40 because that is the plan.  So I instead, find myself at the Walgreens ATM taking out $100.  I could have just done this in the casino.  Or taken it out of my wallet for that matter.  Why am I doing this?   What happened to $40 or bust?  You asshole.

I head back to Cosmopolitan. I am going to only play $40 I swear.  Well it turns out I only played $20 because I hit this:

$200 bucks!  Yay!  Lucky hat go!

I was so excited about this that I celebrated by spreading $100 of it throughout the casino.  WOO!

I went back to my room and took a shower, got dressed and packed my stuff.  At 7:15, I left my beautiful Cosmopolitan room and checked out.  Again with the long walk to the front desk.  Seriously Cosmo, get those carts the airport has to move people around.  I pick up my deposit, stash my bags and go.

Today I am headed to Red Rock for breakfast (free from MyVegas) and then to the Spa.  I could either take the monorail to the 206 bus to get to Red Rock, or take the SDX bus to the 206.  I opt for the SDX.  I am waiting forever and ever for it to come.  The Deuce comes a few times, but since I have a local bus pass, I cannot ride the Deuce without local ID.   I have never gotten asked for it, since I look like a local.  But I don’t want to get into an altercation should I happen to be asked so I wait for the SDX.  (I am also not allowed to ride the SDX but you do not have to swipe your pass on this bus so I am being an immoral person here.)

I wait.  The SDX never comes.  After about an hour, I get up and look at the bus schedule and see that the SDX does not even start running until 9:00.  I have been here since like 7:45, it is now 8:30.  I am the stupidest person alive and I deserve it as karma for trying to take a bus I am not allowed to take.

So I then go to the monorail, to the 206, to Red Rock and get there with not enough time to eat breakfast.   I stop at the player’s club and get the buffet loaded onto my card.  I grab Starbucks and get back on the 206 to my spa appointment.

Today’s spa treatment was also with a Groupon.  I have a two hour massage scheduled.  I will say this, I was so sure that I was shorted on time because it only felt like half an hour.  But when I looked at the time, I was shocked to see that yes, two hours had passed.   It was so relaxing and wonderful.

Afterwards, I headed back to Red Rock to eat lunch.  As I was waiting to be seated, there was an older couple behind me.  You know, the adorable grandparent type of couple.  Then the woman opens her mouth and tells me “If I were at a buffet by myself, I would have to wear a bag over my head because I would be so embarassed.” I did my usual thing when people say really stupid things, and just rolled my eyes and looked away. In retrospect, I should have told her that if I had ever in my entire life not done something because I was too much of a fraidy cat to do it alone, I would have to put a plastic bag over my head and cinch it shut.

Obviously, I travel everywhere alone and didn’t put much of anything into her comment.  But it really bothered me that she felt it was okay to say this.  What if it were not ME she said it to?  What if it were some woman who was venturing out solo for her first time and was not yet fully comfortable with it?  Why would you deliberately go out of your way to make someone feel like shit?   Seriously, asshole move.

It takes me forever and a day to get seated.  Finally I am told that there is a table for me, but I am warned I will be boxed in by kids.  I should have known she wasn’t just telling me that there were kids near me.  This was so much more than just having kids all around me.  This was me being placed inside a seating area where every kid in the vicinity had turned this area into a playground, while their parents just sat and did nothing to stop the climbing, running and screaming.   What was even more I HATE YOU, was that all the adults were clearly done eating and just sat there talking to each other for the entire time I was there.  So you are done eating, there is the world’s longest line outside waiting to be seated, and you are allowing your kids to annoy everyone around you.   You are even worse than that asshole from the line.  Or that asshole with the limp mohawk.  Don’t think I forgot about you, limpy mohawk poser.

After eating, I played a bit.  Since I have (half) my Cosmopolitan win, I can actually play fun things like SuperTimes Pay and Ultimate X.  It has been days.  I play and play and play.  I kept doing that thing where I would reach the end of what I was willing to lose and get one hand that brings you right back.  Fun times at Red Rock hotel and casino!

Once I was ready to fall asleep at my machine, I got up and headed back to Cosmopolitan to get my bags.  Today is moving day to Orleans.

At some point while walking through Cosmopolitan, ninety freaking miles from the Strip to the front desk, I decided to take a cab to Orleans.  I don’t like taking cabs, they are a huge waste to me.  I live in NYC, I am used to taking public transportation everywhere.

That usually results in conversations like this:

Typical Idiot Internet Person: If you can’t afford a cab, you shouldn’t be going to Las Vegas

Me: Who said I cannot AFFORD a cab?

Typical Idiot Internet Person:  You are on vacation, splurge.

Me: I travel at least seventy days a year.  If I splurged $20-$30 every day, that would be $1400-$2100 a year.  (Sometimes I try to be really nice and explain that “I know it is normal to have one vacation a year, and of course it would make sense that you would splurge on your big trip.  Maybe it hadn’t crossed your mind that people travel more than that.”)  If I am going to spend that much money traveling, then I am going to spend it on TRAVELING.  Not on cabs.

Typical Idiot Internet Person: Then maybe you should take shorter trips so you can afford a cab.

Me: (Slams head into keyboard)

So here I am taking a cab to Orleans.  Honestly, it wasn’t even about getting to Orleans.  It was about not wanting to walk through the casino ever again.   It seems even bigger than MGM Grand to me.

I check in.   I am here on two nights comped with $10 in dining credit.

Room and view:
I dropped off my stuff and went next door to Terribles gas station to get me one of those ginormous fountain sodas and they had Peach Mello Yello!  OMG.  Biggest score of the trip!   It was delicious.  If I ever had to decide between the Orleans and another hotel, I would pick Orleans just so that I could get more ginormous Peach Mello Yello fountain drinks.

Back in the casino, I still had my (half) Cosmopolitan win, that is now my Red Rock win.  I played it all and unfortunately was  unable to exchange it for an Orleans win.

I don’t really understand how, but no matter how many times on this trip I swore I would go to bed early, I always ended up being awake way after midnight.  Tonight is another one of those nights.