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Babylon
Blvdby Elizabeth
Bussey Sowdal | |
Last
week my two grown daughters and I packed up every glittery, silky and/or black
thing that we owned, hopped a plane and went to Las Vegas for four days. Just
us, no boys. What a great time we had! There are certain advantages to vacationing
without men. One was that we could take just as long as we wanted to take getting
ready. If somebody needed to wash her face and start her makeup all over again
from scratch, the others understood. It was a given that one or the other of us
might need to try on several outfits before finding the right one. There was not
a single conversation that went, "how do I look?" "You look fine, let’s go." We
didn’t have to ask each other how we looked because we volunteered the information
and never used the word "fine" one time. "Fine" can mean too many different things
and usually none of them are good. "Fine" generally means the color is wrong,
the hem length is wrong, the seams pull, anything but "fine."
We girls
on the other hand used better words, "gorgeous," "skinny," "mysterious." We encouraged
shoe changes and shared earrings and make-up tips. From a grooming perspective
alone, the trip was a blast! It was almost like prom night every night. We’d never
been to Las Vegas before and were a little surprised to find that most of the
other visitors wore shorts and T-shirts most of the time. That didn’t faze us
in the least. We had brought our glad rags and planned to wear them.
Another
advantage to traveling with all girls was that we agreed automatically on what
kinds of things we wanted to eat. We all like our veggies and were not even tempted
to look for "Carny Colon’s 24 Hour All Meat Buffett." We had great meals, saw
more neon than we had ever seen before, and shopped. Oh my, the stores! We went
into places we had previously only read about: Dolce and Gabana, Michael Kors,
Gucci. It was amazing! We learned that when it comes to high end designers "large"
is different than "large" at Target. In fact, "large" is different than "small"
at Target. We learned that there were whole realms of "small" that we would not
have guessed could be found anywhere other than the pre-teen department. We learned
that 50% off of big bucks is still big bucks. We were also happy to learn that
the salespeople in these stores didn’t mind a bit that we were only there to look.
We didn’t even try to pretend we were planning to buy anything, and they all seemed
fine with that.
Where we did part ways, the girls and I, was on the slot
machines. The very first morning we were there I got up at 3:30, which is 5:30
our time. I tried to wake the girls up, but they weren’t interested, so I got
ready and went downstairs by myself. I found a cup of coffee and wandered over
to a slot machine where there was nobody else around. In case I made some stupid
slot machine mistake. I didn’t want any witnesses. I put $20 in the machine –
I didn’t have anything smaller, and I kind of cringed at my extravagance. I played
for about 40 minutes. Up and down, up and down. Whenever I would get within a
few credits of finishing I would win a little more and keep playing. It was starting
to get a little boring, my arm was getting tired from the awkward position and
my tush was going numb when the machine began to tingaling. Ding, ding, ding,
ding. ‘Wow,’ I thought. Ding, ding, ding. ‘Oh, my,’ I thought. Ding, ding, dingdingdingding.
It went on and on and on and on.
My whole body began to tremble. I glanced
around to see if anyone was noticing. The dinging seemed to go on forever. When
it finally stopped I reached out and touched the "cash out" button. I pulled the
ticket out and gulped and looked at it. $458. Yikes! $458 right off the bat! How
lucky could you get? Yee-Haw! I kept all my Yee-Haws silent and internal, thank
goodness, and called the girls to tell them. You wouldn’t think there could be
a downside to winning $458 before your coffee got all the way cold. But there
is. It makes you want to do it again. No matter how long it takes or how much
money it costs.
If it hadn’t been for the girls finally getting impatient
with me I might have continued to sit on that stool for the whole four days. But
they were able to pry me away, and we went back to enjoying each other and enjoying
our time together. We saw an amazing Cirque de Soleil show called "Love" and all
in all had a wonderful, wonderful time. I did play some more slots here and there
and even won another $120, but I kind of had to sneak it in and wheedle the girls
into it, "Just fifteen minutes girls, no matter what!"
We had a wonderful
time, but I think one trip to Las Vegas was plenty for me. I’m way too compulsive
for that town! And I think I would do well to avoid the casinos here in Oklahoma
now that I have been seduced by all that ding, ding, dinging. The fact that I
had to borrow the money for the airport parking from one of the girls should be
almost warning enough. The fact that I was barely embarrassed to borrow it should
be the rest of the warning.
© Elizabeth Bussey Sowdal
"The
Girl Detective's Theory of Everything"
December 8, 2008 Column
Related Topics: Texas
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