I had set the alarm on my phone for 9a so we wouldn’t waste the morning, but we all started stirring at about 8a. Mike was rolling over and I reminded him I wasn’t his wife before he decided to grab a teat and tell me to roll over. There were a slew of things we wanted to do and we decided to put together a schedule over breakfast. We crossed Las Vegas Boulevard (it really doesn’t become “The Strip” until night time) to the Denny’s directly opposite the Monte Carlo.
There was a fair-sized line for a table and Rob agreed to wait for our turn while Mike and I tried to find the movie theatre. We knew one thing we wanted to do was to see The Hangover Part 2 on its opening day. This, too, was conveniently across the street from the Monte Carlo, but the entrance wasn’t obvious. We saw a sign for the theatre, but it was over the entrance to the parking ramp. We went to the next pedestrian entrance and took the escalator upstairs. This turned out to be the department store, Ross. Rather than losing ourselves trying to find the theatre, we immediately turned around and took the escalator downstairs. We figured we wouldn’t be able to find it before our table was ready, so we cut our losses and went back to Denny’s. Outside we saw “actors” dressed as Elmo and Bumblebee trying to convince people to pay for pictures with them.
Once at our table, we had plenty of time to plan our day. In fact, I would say the wait for the food took longer than the wait for the table. At one point, the waitress said she had put our order “on the slow side.” Thanks to Rob’s restaurant industry experience, he knew she probably had forgotten to put in our order. I was fine with the delay, as I would have the chance to tell her I put my wallet “in the other pants.”
Meanwhile, we planned to hang out by the pool and then take in a matinee showing of Hangover 2. We would also purchase tickets to a couple of the shows we wanted to see, including Jabbawockeez at the Monte Carlo and one of the many Cirque du Soleil offerings. I recommended seeing the Crazy Horse Paris show at the MGM Grand (formerly known as Le Femme). The Wife and I saw this show a few years ago and it was very titillating, emphasis on the “tit.” We decided to have dinner that night at Bahama Breeze as Rob could get us a discount on the meal; again, thanks to Rob’s influence in the restaurant industry. We felt a lot better having a plan in place.
After breakfast, we made another effort to find the movie theatre entrance and eventually asked a security guard for help. If we had walked the other way down the cross street, we would have found it. We decided to catch the 2:45p matinee and returned to the Monte Carlo. We visited the concierge to see what tickets we could get for a Cirque du Soleil show. I was on board for Zumanity, but I think the consensus was for O at the Bellagio. Regardless, the prices were well above what we wanted to pay, so we chose to get tickets for Jabbawockeez for Friday night. Since we were guests at the hotel, we received a discount on the tickets.
Back in the room, we prepared for some pool time. My large tube of sunscreen came in handy as Rob had to toss his in CT. Mike didn’t have any either, only because he doesn’t use sunscreen. One side effect of the large breakfast became a continuing theme throughout the trip; trick farting. Crop-dusting, Hot-boxing, Dutch ovens; we did everything short of lighting them on fire. Mike even introduced a new trick I’m going to call the Jump Shot. This is when you run from behind your victim, jump in the air, and let one rip. The intent is to get your ass at a level equal to an ear or the face. At least, that’s the hope. I don’t know how Mike could jump and fart at a level lower than his ass. The boy has no ups! Rob created a game requiring sphincter control. Rather than trying to push out the longest fart, you try to get the highest number of individual bursts. I believe eight was the most, but the last one is still under protest. The funniest instance was when I was in the can. Mike opened the door, backed into the room, and let out a sound similar to a duck gargling seaweed.
I decided to go with flip-flops for the trip down to the pool and kept them on for the remainder of the day. I wouldn’t discover until much, much later what a bad decision that was. We chose a section of the pool area that wasn’t too crowded and was near some palm trees so we could benefit from some shade. This ended up being the old folks’ area, which we may have naturally chosen or created by our presence. We all brought books, but I don’t think any of us read more than a handful of pages. Mike disappeared for a few minutes and then came back with what looked like two horse femurs. They turned out to be yardsticks filled with Pina Coladas. Mike was only allowed to get two at a time, so Rob was on his own. He came back with a yardstick filled with some kind of rum drink. Once those were finished, we got a bucket of Coronas and limes and charged them to the room.
We were in the desert sun during the peak hours, so we stayed by the pool for about 90 minutes, Mike and I trying the wave pool for a little bit, before going to the movie. The actors dressed as Elmo and Bumblebee were still on the corner, but it looked like Bumblebee had put on some weight. This must have been the second shift. We got our tickets and our snacks and sat toward the front of the theatre. The sequel was darker in humor than the original, but there were a lot of laugh out loud moments. The one line we took away from the movie was “there is a reason why they call it Bangkok!” You will have to see the movie to understand.
The movie ended about 5p and since we were very close to the MGM Grand, we walked to the Crazy Horse theatre to get tickets for the show at 10:30p that night. This would allow us plenty of time to walk to Bahama Breeze for dinner and back again. The walk there seemed to take longer than the walk back, probably because we didn’t have casinos in front of us to use as a goal. Dinner was very good, although the margaritas were made in the traditional way, lots of salt on the rim and the tequila taste wasn’t masked by blended fruit flavoring and crushed ice. I washed down the rest of my dinner with a couple beers. We ordered appetizers which we didn’t finish, brought back with us (my choice), and never ate. We kept them in a garbage can filled with ice and a couple bottles of beer in our room.
We showered and changed into nicer “going out” clothes before heading to the MGM Grand. We had some pretty good seats, center stage, one level up from the tables on the floor where The Wife and I sat when we saw it. Rob and I split a bucket of Sam Adams (five for the price of four) and gave Mike the extra. He started with a glass of wine. The show delivered what I had promised. There were a couple of the same skits, but most of them were new. My favorite, and for Mike and Rob as well, was one called Chain Gang. One dancer worked poles that looked like jail cell bars, but were flexible, and she swung her wet hair around to create hazy sprays. She would kick up something on the stage that would curl into wisps of smoke. The song sounded like it was from Alabama 3, the band who sings the song during the beginning credits of The Sopranos. Everything tied together perfectly.
Another favorite was an act with three dancers gyrating on chairs. In between some acts, a woman would dance, using the curtain to cover herself like a fan dancer. She would kiss paper hearts and hand them to people in the audience. The great thing about such an intimate theatre was that you would feel like the performers were looking at you. At one point, while the dancer was kissing, winking, and pointing into the crowd, Mike smacked his beer bottle into his wine glass and broke it. I’m not entirely convinced the two events were unrelated.
Our next, and last, stop of the evening was at the Tropicana for some gambling. We had been in Vegas for more than 24 hours, and had done very little of it. I knew from previous stays there were several blackjack tables and most were smaller stakes. Only two years had passed since the last time I stayed there, but the casino had been completely revamped and looks very impressive. We showed up during a Club Nikki Beach All White party. I’m sure some people would have looked around and thought they might be in Miami Beach. Me, I thought it looked like a scene from Woody Allen’s Sleeper.
We found an empty $10 table and Mike and I put in a hondo. Rob was content to watch at first. We had a pretty good run and a really friendly dealer with whom we joked quite a bit. We were close to the waitress stand, so we had a continual stream of fresh beers. After several minutes, I asked Mike if he had an extra $20 bill, which I would match and give to Rob as a birthday gift. This was all the convincing he needed and he added his own $20. We played for a long time with just a couple outsiders stopping in and then dipping out, which was fine with us. We were three childhood pals having a good time together in Vegas. I had been able to change out some of my red $5 chips into three green $25 chips and still had a stack of red chips to play. That’s when things started to get ugly.
I was quickly burning through my stack of reds when I made a fatal mistake. Rather than cash in one of my green chips and telling myself to stop when all those chips are gone, I cashed in two. I should have held the two greens in reserve and been satisfied at losing only half my stake. Well, those chips didn’t last long, so I went full tilt and cashed in my other green until all of it was gone. What didn’t help matters was Rob was having a string of showing 12 or 13 and getting the 7, 8, or 9 needed to beat or push the dealer. He would have other hands in between, but he had a streak of like six or seven hands when he needed an 8 or 9 and he would get it. I was happy for him, but I was cursing my luck; in one instance pretty loudly, but I showed the proper etiquette of stepping away from the table before yelling the F-word through clenched teeth.
Once the $100 was gone, I was ready to go home. Rob and Mike were ready to go, too, so I gathered up the remains of my shattered hopes and trudged back to the hotel. Luckily, we didn’t have too far to go. My feet were killing me!
Day 2 Expenses
Breakfast at Denny’s - $18.00 (estimate, no receipt)The Hangover Part 2 and snacks - $22.25
Monte Carlo Jabbawockeez Tickets - $64.78
Dinner at Bahama Breeze - $41.83
MGM Grand Crazy Horse Paris Show Tickets - $60.50
Drinks at the show - $18.00 (estimate, no receipt)
Birthday blackjack for Rob - $20.00
Tropicana blackjack and beers - $100.00
*
Day 2 Total - $345.36
Running Total - $1,144.87
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