"Would Your Girflriend Mind If I Sat on Your Lap?"

Well, I’m back in L.A., after cutting my Christmas Vegas a bit short.  My original plan was to come home on Tuesday, but left Monday instead.  I was trying to beat the weather.  A total of four storms were predicted to hit the West Coast this week.  Monday was supposed to be a weak one, but the one for Tuesday was predicted to be quite strong.  Just as a general rule, I’d prefer not to make the 4-1/2 drive home in the pouring rain, of course.  But there are actually a couple of mountain passes between here and Vegas where it often snows during the winter storms.  And I’ve even seen snow in places where it “never snows” in the past, like Victorville and Barstow.  And when it does snow, if it’s more than just a dusting, they don’t waste any time closing the freeway.  None of this chains or snow tires stuff—they just close down the I-15.

With all the trips I’ve made to Vegas over the years, many in the winter, I’ve lucked out and never been prevented from getting through.  If I recall correctly, the second or third time I went up for Christmas with my pal Norm, a storm closed the I-15 for three days and it just opened the morning we were scheduled to go there.  Another time Norm and I went up there in April—it was actually on Easter Sunday, which was very late that year—and a freak arctic storm hit that morning.  We actually drove through snow flurries but made it through ok.  Later that day, in Vegas, we heard they closed the I-15 at Mountain Pass (about an hour south of Vegas) just a few hours after we drove through it.   

Then there was the time that it snowed in Vegas for several days before I headed up.  That wasn’t that long ago, actually.  The weather had cleared but there was still plenty of snow on the ground—and on the roofs of houses—when I got to Vegas.  And snow all along the side of I-15 as I drove up.  I stopped in a place called Hesperia (just south of Victorville) to make a rest stop, and the parking lot of the Jack-in-the-Box were I stopped had snow all around.  I had to make a snowball just for the hell of it.  I threw it—at no one in particular. It was the first time I’d touched snow since I was just a kid.

We were always concerned about this so Norm and I researched it and figured out a way to get to Vegas (or home from Vegas) without using the I-15 (or any non-Interstate route that paralleled the I-15, since the problem would be the same).  This was before Google or the internet existed so we had to use a Road Atlas—anyone remember them?—to figure it out.  We came up with a way that would take us through Blythe, CA on the border with Arizona—a long way from Vegas.  It probably would have been a 9 or so hour trip as I recall.  Luckily we never had to try it.

So to make sure I didn’t get stuck in Mountain Pass or the Cajon Pass much farther south, I came home a day early.  It had rained in Vegas overnight Sunday, but I only had to deal with an occasional drizzle driving back, and traffic was good despite two major incidents.  Just as I was approaching Baker, I could see that traffic coming the other way was at a complete standstill, and as I got closer, I could see why.  There was a helicopter that had landed in the middle of the freeway, in the northbound lanes.  Didn’t see any evidence of an accident but apparently someone had to be taken to a hospital post haste.  For a few miles, the northbound freeway I was passing was just a parking lot, people were out of their cars walking around, chatting with their neighbors.  Ugh.

Then, as I was heading into the aforementioned Cajon Pass, I didn’t quite see the accident, but I saw some of the result—a huge pile of smoke, dirt and dust in the air as traffic slowed to a crawl.  As I eeked by, I saw a car facing the wrong way in the left most lane that was barely more than scrap metal.  I later heard on the radio that it was a multi-car crash where one vehicle had overturned several times.  Amazingly, it didn’t seem like anyone was hurt too badly and it only delayed me a couple of minutes.

And for good measure, after I arrived home, I heard about one of the major freeways in my neighborhood closed for hours due to the police chasing—and catching—a wrong way driver who was wanted for murder.  It wasn’t very far from where I live, but fortunately for me it wasn’t a freeway I use to get back from Vegas.

But I digress.  This trip was a very good one, so much better than my Halloween trip.  It was not without its frustrations, of course, but the poker went quite well overall and I have many successful (and fun) sessions to report on. Most of those frustrations were non-poker related, things like the weather, my chronic backache bothering me more than usual, bad cocktail service and the like.  And by weather, I don’t really mean the weather outside (despite the fact that it was unusually cold in Vegas most of the time I was there—but definitely not unseasonably cold),  I mean the weather inside numerous casinos and poker rooms, which were actually colder (or seemed colder) that the frigid temperatures outside.

If seems I’m stalling, I am.  Between total exhaustion from this trip, and the fact that I have an Ante Up column due Friday, there isn’t time for me to start relaying all the juicy details from this trip in the proper Robvegaspoker-style that you demand. So I only have time to do a short post to keep you satisfied until I get you the long, detailed posts I know you hunger for.

So just a quick hooker story to keep you entertained for the moment. I didn’t really expect to score another hooker story this trip, after the last one which I reported on so recently (see here). But this happened Sunday night, just after my last poker session of the trip.  It was a decent session, I came out ahead, and I’ll eventually write about it one of these days.  I was heading back to the MGM garage.  I took a seat in front of a slot machine in the area I call “Hooker Central”—which is also a decent place to catch some of the club goers as they march to and from the club. Unlike the previous two nights, it was a slow night for the club.

I was happy about the session, happy about the overall trip, but a bit frustrated that I had to end the trip prematurely, and that I had to end the session earlier than I might have since I had to get up early the next day for the long drive home. So I really didn’t even think that the two black ladies I’d seen earlier where working girls—my spidey sense wasn’t going off.  Actually, the one girl who really got my attention was wearing a really tight, short dress more like a club girl would wear than a hooker would. I also noticed she was rather amply endowed in the chestal region.

They were in front of me when I sat down but before I knew it, they had turned around and came over to me.  Damn, I was totally unprepared, and frankly, not really in a mood to deal with them.  Besides, I’d already gotten my obligatory hooker story for this trip.

But there they were, right in front of me.  The one who was more modestly dressed spoke.  “Hi!”  I was a captive audience.  I said hi back. “Whacha doing there, looking so sad?”  Guess the disappointment for having to leave Vegas early showed on my face.  I said, “Nothing.”  I know, incredibly clever, huh?

She repeated her question. “Whacha doing?”  Now as I mentioned, I wasn’t really in the mood to deal with her. My mind jumped to something that I thought for sure would make them lose interest.  “I’m waiting for my girlfriend.”

She immediately came back with, “You’re waiting for your girlfriend? I don’t believe that.” Hmm….kind of insulting, isn’t it?  I mean, do I look so pathetic that the thought of me having a girlfriend is out of the question?  You know, next time, I’ll try, “I’m waiting for my boyfriend” and see if that works better.

I just laughed and shrugged.

So she said, “Would your girlfriend mind if I sat on your lap?”

I’m pretty sure my imaginary girlfriend would mind that very much.  Certainly a real girlfriend would object.

I said, “Yeah. I think she would.”

She thought for a second and then asked, “Well, can I sit on your lap?”     

I said “No.”  I think I stretched out the word “no” so it was like, “noooooooo.”

Anyway, she got the message, said, “Okay,” and then the two of them walked away.

And that is how my Vegas trip came to an end. I’ll tell you the rest over the coming weeks.