Next Step Therapy Blog: Best Trip Ever – Part Six

| June 3, 2018

Tracy Cowles, CEO and owner of Next Step Therapy, submitted the following article:

BEST TRIP EVER (PART SIX)

STRAIGHT UP G

VEGAS TIP #4: For your first trip out, plan no more than four days. Between the time change, the lights and noise, and the expense, four days is usually plenty. The only reason that the boys and I stayed for eight was because they were on spring break. I would never stay for eight days and just gamble.

VEGAS TIP #5: As with all vacation/tourist destinations from Disney to cruise ships to island resorts, Vegas exists solely to make money. You and I both know that you are traveling to relax, have fun, and make memories, but it is always wise to remember that the owners/investors built that business for the sole purpose of sucking every nickel out of your pocket possible. I am always a little floored when I see people throw a fit over paying four dollars for a bottle of water at an amusement park. “I can get a whole case of water at home for $4!!” Yes, you can, but you are not at home. A beer in Vegas is at least six bucks. A “well” drink is at least eight. A “shelf” brand drink (big name) is at least twelve. I’m always amused when the newbies plop themselves on a bar stool, order two drinks, and get a bill for twenty-four dollars. You always have the choice to not drink. You can get “free” drinks from cocktail waitresses while playing slot machines or table games, but they often take 10-15 minutes to bring them. All hotels/casinos have convenience stores where you can buy liquor to take to your room, but a bottle of Grey Goose or Crown Royale is about $85. What to do, what to do?? Either plan for it and suck it up or try Fat Tuesdays.

Fat Tuesdays are counter bars (no tables) located in virtually every hotel or shopping plaza throughout Vegas. They serve only frozen, slushy concoctions. You get a 32-ounce drink for about seventeen dollars that has about four shots of alcohol in it. Because it is frozen, you can’t chug…you sip for hours or give yourself a freeze headache. The positive is, it is served in an insulated “souvenir” cup, and refills are only $10. Ergo, you can keep this cup for the entire trip, rinse it out, and get drinks for $10 pretty much everywhere you go. The negative: these are huge vats of sugar and alcohol. Diabetes and alcoholism in a souvenir cup.

So, it’s Thursday, day seven of our trip, and after breakfast, we went to Planet Hollywood to the tattoo shop. The three of us got tattoos. The guys had talked about it since day one. Some of these tattoo artists had been on TV shows like “Inked,” so it was kind of cool, and very expensive. The guys get a little bit of bragging rights that they got ink in Vegas. Mine was a smaller one, so I was done in less than an hour, but the guys were going to take up to four hours. I wandered down the hall, got a saccharine infused adult beverage at Fat Tuesdays, and went to the casino.

I had been in touch with a friend of a friend of mine who had moved to Vegas two weeks prior. He decided to come meet me, as I had hours to kill. This was not a date. I had offered to buy this guy a drink, or dinner with me and the boys, to celebrate his move. Let’s call him “Jersey.” I had met him two or three times at social functions over the past twenty years. Oh people, my people…. he was an hour late. He did two shots at the bar. We had a nice conversation for about an hour. I had been drinking my tipsy slushy for three hours and still had some left. He wanted one. He ordered an extra shot put in his. During our nice hour of conversation, I told him that the boys and I would be heading to Caesar’s Palace when they were done. Jersey was interested in going along. By the time the boys caught up to us, Jersey was loud, obnoxious, and totally convinced he was the funniest guy in Vegas. Not.

The boys disliked him instantly. I had no desire to take him to Caesar’s. I was rapidly becoming upset. We get to Caesar’s, and I direct the guys to the shopping plaza. Jersey can barely stand up. He “goes to take a leak” and tells me to “wait here.” Oh no, you did not just tell me to sit and stay like a dog. Naturally, I found myself engrossed in a slot machine fifty feet away. Jersey doesn’t come back. He texts me that he has “fallen down the rabbit hole” with a picture of concrete. Just concrete. Parking garage? Bowels of the basement? Who knows? I’m not looking for him.

I get a text from Noah asking where we were. They hadn’t been gone long enough to do the whole shopping plaza. I asked if they were done, he said they were, I told him Taxi Stand in eight minutes. And I left. I met the boys at the taxi stand. “Where’s Drunk Jersey?” (Note that he had become Drunk Jersey, and will forever, in our home, be referred to as Drunk Jersey). “Don’t know, don’t care, he’s apparently lost.” I showed them the concrete picture. “So, you are just leaving him?” “Sure am.”

I was LIVID. I had been having a lovely, pretty much perfect time with the guys, and then I was embarrassed in front of the guys. I was relatively certain that the guys cut their time short at Caesar’s because they were concerned about leaving me alone with him. The very idea that Noah and Kahlil would have been compelled to protect mom, had he laid a hand on me, or said something foul…you know there are young men all over Western PA who have no recollection of an entire day after getting laid out on the football field by these two. I was beside myself.

During this entire trip, we did not wait in a taxi line for more than five cars, except this day at Caesar’s when I’m looking over my shoulder trying to escape. Finally, finally, its our turn. We’re piling into the cab, me ranting about not babysitting fifty-year-old jerks, and I hear, “NO WAY!!!” Our driver was sweet, sweet Josepha from Monday night. She said, “In all of my years of driving, I have never picked up the same family or group twice. The odds are astronomical. Oooohhh, this means you are going to have extremely good luck tonight! You play a machine and think about me, you’ll win.” Just for laughs, I looked some stuff up. Las Vegas gets 42.9 MILLION visitors a year. The taxi system provides 2 Million rides per MONTH. Seriously, the odds of getting the same driver in the same week, is about the same as getting hit by lightning.

The guys and I stuff ourselves at Luxor’s Chinese Restaurant, and again, it is so easy. These guys don’t care where we eat, we sample food off of each other’s plates, we laugh through the whole meal. Kahlil’s tattoo was seeping a great deal, so the guys took off to go to a drug store for gauze, tape and more ointment. I hit a slot machine that had been my friend throughout the week.

It’s loud. It’s Thursday night. We’re leaving the next day, and I am kind of glad that we’re about done. I’ve spent a lot of money, and I was missing Eli and the dogs. I’m hitting the button on the machine, and get a text from Drunk Jersey that says, “Things went sideways.” Silly, silly me, I think I’m going to get an apology. Meanwhile, Noah texts that they are back in their room bandaging each other. Instead of an apology from Drunk Jersey, I receive a selfie (picture of self, taken on phone and sent by text to me). It is his face, smashed and bloody. He tells me that he “took a rocks glass to the face while defending a young ladies honor.” OMG, he got in a fight at Caesar’s Palace! I texted him back, “Glad I left when I did.” I then forward the picture to Noah.

I look at my machine and realize that I have racked it up to $400, and per my gambling protocol, it was time to cash it out before it took it back. I get my voucher, and I’m gathering up my stuff to leave when for no reason at all I decided that the machine was still happy and being good to me so maybe it wasn’t done. I stuck more money in the machine.
Are you familiar with the laughing/crying emoji on phones, Facebook, etc.? It’s a smiley face with tears on both cheeks, and when you send it to someone, it indicates that you laughed so hard you cried. Noah and I send this to each other regularly.

I hit the button on the machine, maybe three times, and hit a type of “bonus.” I knew instantly that I had just hit big. The bells and whistles go off, and I do a double take. I won $8100.00. Unbelievable! I text Noah what I won, and he texts back that I must be kidding. I took a screenshot (picture) of the machine and send it to him. He texts back, enormously excited, and says, “That pays for most of the trip, doesn’t it?” And, it did.

The devil made me do it. That’s all I can say. I sent that screenshot of my big win to Drunk Jersey with the caption “My night.” Then I texted Noah and told him what I’d done. He texts back the laughing/crying emoji with the words, “Stop. Please stop!” Then Drunk Jersey texted back, “I kind of hate you a little bit.” I texted back, “No doubt in my mind.” I then shared that with Noah. Noah texts back three laughing/crying emojis and says, “Mom stop. Kahlil laughed so hard he fell off the bed. He’s sitting on the floor crying. I’m crying.”

In the meantime, I have been approached by the casino staff, and congratulated by dozens of other players. People have rubbed me for luck. The casino staff brings me my new Players Card. Platinum. There is only one level higher. They count out eight grand in hundred-dollar bills, and then walk me to my room.

I let both boys hold and fan out the money. We are just chattering away, when Kahlil looks at me and says, “Mom, I gotta tell you something. I’ve told Noah several times this week, and I’ve just gotta tell you.” I say, “Ok!” He says, “Mom, you are straight up G.”

I’m looking at this young man, and he is so sincere, it broke my heart a little to say, “Honey, I don’t know what that means.”

The two of them are off again in hearty laughter. Kahlil says, “O.G. means Original Gangster. G means Gangster. You are a savage. From the minute we walked into that tattoo shop this morning and you literally took over, to hopping off the table with your tattoo before we were even started, to leaving Drunk Jersey without even a goodbye, to strolling up here with eight thousand dollars like it’s not that big of a deal, and then literally destroying that guy with two sentences…you are straight up G.”

Whether you understand it or not, it was one of the best compliments I have ever received.

By the time you read this, I will have returned from yet another trip to Vegas. I was invited to play in a tournament and decided to go try it out. With the Platinum card, there will apparently be a limo to pick me up at the airport.

Yes, I am feeling straight up G!

~Tracy

RELATED:

Next Step Therapy Blog: Best Trip Ever – Part One

Next Step Therapy Blog: Best Trip Ever – Part Two

Next Step Therapy Blog: Best Trip Ever – Part Three

Next Step Therapy Blog: Best Trip Ever – Part Four

Next Step Therapy Blog: Best Trip Ever – Part Five


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