Wake up, wake up, nothing could be worse, oh yeah! -Imarobot

9am came entirely too early on Sunday. I rolled out of bed, eyes bleary and red, face even puffier than normal, hair whipped up in a frenzy like it had self-styled in a tribute to the bride of Frankenstein, mouth like the Sahara (and I suppose it’s possible that at some point during the previous evening I actually DID lick something at the Sahara), and still I needed to get my stuff back in order and get out of the room before eleven. I drifted back and forth across the room, eventually collecting everything together or at least I think I did, stumbled to the elevator, made my way to the ABC store and croaked that I needed water or I was going to die. I then proceeded to chug an entire liter in front of the clerk who I believe attempted not to openly laugh at my clear dysfunctionality.

Semi-rehydrated, I plodded from the tower I was staying in to the front desk, stopping to press a penny along the way, as I cannot pass a penny-pressing machine without checking in every single pocket for the appropriate change or demanding it from the people around me. I have handfuls of elongated pennies and while I have no idea what I will actually do with them besides have them, their procurement is important to me. To this day, I’m disappointed that I didn’t have change when I went to the Oregon Vortex to use their penny machine. That was six years ago.

After checkout, I walked to the monorail and made my way back to Bally’s, where Kirsti and Matt were beginning to stir. Our collective hearts went out to Jason, who must have had enough time after he’d gotten back to his hotel to just sit on his bed for thirty minutes before he had to catch his flight out. The rest of us had a few hours to hang out before my mom was scheduled to come and pick me up, and we spent the majority of it just hanging out in their room, talking. We eventually headed downstairs to the casino to see if there were cheaper blackjack tables, given that it was a Sunday afternoon as opposed to Saturday evening, and lo and behold, we found a $5 minimum table. Matt and I sat down; I’m familiar with blackjack but had never played in a casino before and stumbled through some of the learning process. The dealer was surprisingly patient with me, my hand-motion idiocy, and my inability to add while hungover, even giving me advice when I was about to do something stupid, and I ended up having quite a bit of fun at the table. I even got blackjack two hands in a row!

After we played, it was pretty well time for me to leave, so they both walked me to the pick-up/drop-off area and waited for my mom. On our way to get some food, my mom told me that she was dating a magician and I choked on my snort of laughter. EVERYTHING about that scenario is funny to me. I keep thinking about him pulling scarves out of his wallet when going to pay for a movie, or ‘finding’ money behind my mom’s ear or whipping flowers out of his pants and I just want to die laughing. No one even wants to think about their parents having sex and yet I swear to you throwing a magician in there makes the idea of that funny as well. Seriously, a magician? What, a rodeo clown wasn’t available? No Elvis impersonators on the market?

At the airport, they announced that the flight was completely full and they were offering bumps. I tried to get on the list as I would have liked to spend another day; I didn’t get to spend any time with Frank over the weekend as he was busy with other stuff, and I was hoping to get to go with him to shoot automatic weapons, but it just wasn’t meant to be.

Until next time, Vegas. You stay classy!