The World According to JP

The last of my teammates filed out of my hotel room in St. George at 3:30 a.m. We had gone through 2 cases of beer and a bottle of whiskey. The plan was to get up around 10, catch the continental breakfast downstairs, check out by 11 and head back to Vegas for an afternoon and evening of drinking, dancing and debauchery.

The wake up call comes at 10, but it feels like I just went to sleep an hour earlier. We all get out of bed and take turns in the shower. After packing up, we head out to make the 130 mile trek back to Vegas. This time in broad daylight. Let me just say that the trip on I-15 is absolutely gorgeous. More rock cliffs, the beginning of the Grand Canyon and miles upon miles of desert with mountains in the background.

After the road trip which included taking in all that gorgeous scenery, along with another stop for a female ballplayer that had to pee like a Russian racehorse, we arrived on the Vegas Strip. It’s a totally different world there, let me tell you. It oozes seediness and sex. Even in broad daylight. There are people handing out porn. There are others trying to drum up business for the legal whorehouses. There are still more people trying to hustle you for your last penny.

Along the way, some of my teammates were trying to find us rooms, to no avail. We ended up stopping at The Stardust, which is the home of Wayne Newton’s act. We went in to see if they had any rooms. They did, in fact have rooms. We ended up getting three suites, which could hold up to 5 people each. More than enough room and only $120 a night. Very reasonable. Very fun.

We got there fairly early (around 12:45), so only one of the rooms is ready. We have the bellhop bring up all the bags to that one room. Once there, this dude proceeds to sit and chat with us for 30 fucking minutes. If he was making small talk, it wouldn’t have been so bad. But this guy sat there and bitched about everything in his life for a solid half hour (I could have stayed home for that.). Not the best way to elicit a tip. He complained about his marriage, his job, the shitty little car he drives, his fucked up kids, so on and so forth (Wait, was that me or him? It's all a blur.). We all sat there in disbelief. At one point, one of my teammates said to him, "are you STILL complaining over there?" Anyhow, he left with $10 of our hard earned dollars (not bad for 20 bags). He would have gotten at least $1 a bag if he would have just shut the fuck up. Then, to top it off, he came back an hour later with one of my cd cases that he forgot to deliver. Then, while he was in the room, he proceeded to open the case up and look through it. We all stared at him in disbelief. I took the cd case from him and as he was holding out his hand, I gave him a hearty handshake and sent him on his way. After he left, it was discovered that he delivered two extra bags to our room. They weren’t ours. If this idiot would have put as much thought into his job as he did into bitching, he’d be running the fucking casino. We called the head bellhop dude and explained the situation...then we turned this guy in. I hope he lost his job. I mean, it’s one thing to complain about everything under the sun. It’s quite another to go through a guest’s personal belongings. He didn’t know that there were cd’s in that case. It could have been most anything.

After that fiasco was over, we all headed down to the bar to watch some football (it IS Sunday, after all) and drink some beer. We also hit a buffet while we were milling around. Let me just say that if I were to live in Vegas, I’d weigh a metric ton. The buffets are un-freaking-believable. Steak, chicken, prime rib, peel and eat shrimp, Chinese food, full salad bar, etc. All for $10. I stood in front of the dude that was cutting steak saying "Hit me, hit me, hit me; ok, I’ll stick." They got a little upset when I tried to take the whole tray of shrimp back to my table instead of using a plate. Other than that, it was a fantastic eating experience.

After football was over, we joined the women at the pool. All of them were shitfaced already. Let me just say that having six drunken females in Vegas is a great experience. I highly recommend it to everyone. We hung out at the pool for a couple of hours, then retired to our rooms to get ready for a night out on the Strip. The plan was to head to New York, New York to hit the ESPN Zone and the roller coaster and then head to Mandalay Bay for a night of drunken revelry.

The nighttime happenings deserve its own entry, so that’s just what it will get.


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