What Happens in Vegas, STAYS in Las Vegas

It is the eve of my 30th birthday and I am very depressed.  My whole life is falling apart and here I am sitting in my living room alone.  My phone rings.  Ah ha an early birthday greeter...just what I need!  Wrong!

Well, as it turns out, it is just what I need.  It is Roy and asks how I am doing....give him the good news and he says he is on his way over.  Got a surprise for me.  Well, he came over and what a surprise he had for me.  I laughed the rest of the evening and when I turned the miserable age of 30 I was still laughing.  I can still think of that night and I still laugh.  We made a few plans that night and they were brought to be almost immediately.  Roy and I were going to Las Vegas.  We just kind of planned it quickly and next thing we knew in a couple of days we were on the road.  What a trip it was.

Roy was one of these people who would drive straight through if he was going 10,000 miles I think.  It was like a 20 hour trip and he drove the entire time.  We talked and laughed and laughed.  When we got to Las Vegas at around midnight anyone with any good sense at all would have thought we would get a room and go to sleep and hit Vegas in the morning.  I, by the way, was on the side of let's go to sleep and get some rest and see this tomorrow.  Nope.....the strip was so lit up it was as bright as noon time.  We were going to see what was happening.

Now, here is where things begin to get funny....first of all you have to understand that I am not a drinker in any way, never have been and never will be.  Understood!  Good!  We go into some Casino...who knows, who cares and we go into the lounge.  We sit down at a table and the waitress comes over and asks to help us.  Roy says he will have a Harvey Wallbanger.  I say I will have a diet coke.  Roy says the lady will have a Harvey Wallbanger also.  I say no thanks, I will have a diet coke.  Roy insists and the waitress listens to him.  I have NEVER tasted a Harvey Wallbanger....Roy says I will like it, it doesn't taste like alcohol at all.  He is right...it tasted like a lemonade with cherry juice and pineapples or whatever (it has been a long time), but bottom line is I liked it.  Drank it right down.  Went down easy.  Went down smooth.  I'll have another!  It doesn't even make you feel funny or anything...just good.  Roy orders me one more.  Waitress brings it.  Yummy it goes down as easy as the first one...really drinkable.  Think I will have another one....Roy puts the brakes on me...says shouldn't really have had the second one....they weren't called Harvey Wallbangers for nothing.  "Oh no," I say, "I don't feel a thing.  This is really good."  Nope the brakes are locked in place.  No more Harvey Wallbangers for Bonnie.  I drink a diet coke.

Roy decides he wants to play dice...there is another word for it as we all know and I suppose since I am even telling this story I might as well just tell the whole shabangs....Roy wants to go shoot Craps.  I say okay.  I have never shot Craps.  When we get to the table, I say I will play too.  It looks kind of fun.  I get Roy to put a chip on my number or however it goes and shoot away. This is kind of cool..... everybody is laughing and having a good time and I now have more chips.  Well, since I am not feeling anything from my HWB's I pick up some of my chips but leave some or one or whatever and shoot again.  WOW!  The crowd breaks loose I am really doing good and having a good time I might add.  This goes on for a couple of minutes and one more time I shoot and win and lean over the table to pick up my chips and BING BANG BOOM....next thing I know is I wake up in my room......seems my brother had to carry me out of the Casino over his shoulder (with help) put me in the car, drove to a motel, checked in, took me in and pulled the covers down and put me on the bed, covered me up and leaves me there.  I awaken the next afternoon about 3:00, alone in the room, still fully clothed, including shoes, socks and GLASSES.  Oh my head hurts.  The Harvey Wallbanger was a very dangerous drink.  

This was the day before cell phones....were was Roy...where was I....Well Roy knew where I was and finally the phone rings and he asks if I feel rested and ready to go.  I am pretty sure he has yet to sleep...but he was young...only 26.  Well yes I guess, but I would like to have something to eat so he says he will be there in a minute and we will go eat and maybe see a show. He says there is a great Buffet downtown that is only $3.00 per person and we are going there.  He says it is really popular and we will beat most of the crowd.  What does he know...there is always a crowd in Las Vegas because no one ever knows what time it is and they eat when they get hungry and sleep when they get exhausted.  Anyway, on the way to the buffet he tells me all about last night.  I shudder!  He tells me that when I leaned over the table to get my last winnings I just, oh my, I am not sure I can say it....I just passed out over the table.  I can't believe it!  I never felt it coming or anything.  How could something so good be so lethal? NEVER AGAIN!!!!  He says good idea!  Back to diet cokes for me.  And people wonder why I don't drink?  Now the whole world will know!

Okay end of that...now we go to the Buffet.  Crowd has gathered.  Very long line.  We take our place in line and are talking and laughing and Roy, of course, must amuse himself.  He was not a good stand in line and wait kind of person.  So, he decides to amuse himself with one of Daddy's tricks.  He would practice while we are in line.  As told before, Daddy was always doing tricks and making people laugh and sometimes cry...but always doing tricks.  So here is the trick...hope I can explain it:  

First:  You must have a jacket on to make this trick work....Roy was in a tank top and shorts, but as Daddy would say, "That was no step for a stepper."  So Roy begins.

Second:  You must have a quarter.  Roy has no quarter so gets one from me.

Third:  You hold quarter in right hand (if you are right handed) and you hold your right hand up to about shoulder height.

Fourth:  You kind of throw the quarter into the palm of your left hand and it of course bounces back up into your right hand and then it disappears.  (Many of you reading this right now have seen this trick performed many many times.)

Okay, Roy is continuing practicing the quarter bounce and he might even be getting the procedure down.  It is beginning to kind of bounce back into his right hand.  Now, I am not going to give away the secret of this trick for some of you may have mastered it and I don't want to ruin it for you.  But, remember that Roy had on a tank top shirt.

Okay, the quarter is beginning to bounce back pretty well into his right hand, but it has no where to go and that is okay really because Roy needs to practice it more.  He really wants that quarter to SNAP back into his right hand so each time he does it there is a little more force in both the release of the quarter and the bounce back of the quarter.

Fifth:  The quarter disappears!  That is the whole trick.  Nobody knows where the quarter is...oh where can it be?  Well, in this particular case the quarter had flown out of Roy's hand and flown through the air and had landed in a boy of about six years old, mashed potatoes.  "Oh look mama what I just found," he excited says to this mother, "a quarter."  "Where did you get that," she asks.  "It just flew out of the air and into my mashed potatoes," he replies, "Can I keep it"?  "I asked you where you got that quarter," the mother sternly asks him again.  "I told you.  It just came flying through the air and landed in my potatoes.  I promise."  "I have told you about making things up....where DID you GET that quarter?  I want the truth this time".  "I promise......." he says again. Everyone in the waiting line knows where the quarter came from and everyone in the entire line is hysterical, up to and including Roy and me.  Nobody can help the child out because we are all laughing so hard.  The little boy did not get spanked or hit or anything like that or surely one of us would have come forth with the fact that the quarter did indeed "Fly through the air and right into his mashed potatoes."  His mother however did take the quarter away from him and I guess he never did convince her where it came from.  I hope that right now some young man is reading this and at this moment is calling his mother to tell her about this...and "See, I told you it just came out of the air and landed in my mashed potatoes."

Okay, I have almost regained my composure.  That is one of my funniest memories ever of my whole life.  What?  You didn't think it was funny?  Well, maybe you just had to have been there.

We have now left Vegas and are returning home.  We of course didn't leave until very late at night because Roy was driving and he wasn't ready to leave.  But, finally at the last hour we had to leave.  We had to get home because I had to be back to work on Monday morning.  So we left.  Now it is very early morning, the sun has come up (barely) and Roy is hungry.  We stop at Cafe Nowhere in downtown Nowhere for breakfast.  Place is empty we get right in and food is served promptly.  Just getting ready to eat when the crowd comes in.  Approximately 100 Hell's Angel's, yes I mean the motorcycle group of the early 70's that terrorized everyone on the West Coast.  Well, there we were...my hippie brother and his terrified sister have come face to face alone with the Hell's Angels.  Needless to say, even Roy was READY to go!  We were to say the least a bit uncomfortable....he had long hair and a tank top on...and we were everything these people hated.  We got up and left that place ... hungry!  Didn't stop until we got to a real town.

This may be the shirt he had one...if not, one very similar....but not that hair and smile...and not that clean cut.....

    

Perhaps it was this one....with the sleeves cut out...

But, he definitely had hair like this, except longer...maybe it was this shirt with the sleeves cut out.....mix all these three photos into one...and you get the picture of that morning in Nowhere......

Hope you enjoyed our trip to Vegas....and remember what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas and this has stayed there for 38 years.  Just remember....we laughed a whole lot!  At everything!  Things that were not even funny!  Like I had never laughed before and will never laugh like that again.  Happy Birthday to me.....It turned out to be a very good birthday....