Vegas Prayers

You often hear of travel guides telling you about things that you must do or see when you are in Vegas but we're taking a different track here. Never having been to Las Vegas, I was elated when my boss told me I had been chosen to go for a training seminar on Teen Court from Monday the 2^nd to Friday the 6^th. I wasn't sure what to expect, but since my Chief and Director were joining me, I figured it wouldn't be too crazy.  I was just excited to see all the lights, play a few dollars in a slot machine, eat at the wonderful buffets I hear about, and maybe take in a show! Well, it didn’t quite go as expected. Here is an account of my trip.

Monday:

We arrived at the airport with suitcases packed and ready for business and pleasure. With a smile on my face and joy in my heart, I kissed my husband goodbye. His only words of advice for me while in Vegas… “don’t get married while you’re there!” He’s so funny! And off I go with Chief J’me in toe! We meet up with Mr. Saffle and get our boarding passes and we are ready to get on our flight. Prayer: “Dear God, please keep my kids safe while I am gone and me safe while in the air. Amen.” Our flight reads “on time” for 9:25 am, so we take a seat and wait. There is an awful lot of fog on the ground and after a while we hear the announcement, “passengers on the flight to Dallas (we had a connecting flight from there), the plane was here, circled around for a while trying to land, but turned around and went back to Dallas. We are expecting a take-off of 11:25am.” Now, I am bummed that we have to sit for 2 more hours. A little later, the flight was cancelled! So, we stand in a long line with cranky people tugging luggage and get booked on the next available flight… leaving at 6:45pm! This means we will arrive in Vegas at about midnight, which is 2:00am Oklahoma time. Ok, so our plans to walk the strip will have to wait for another night…no biggie. Mr. Saffle drops me and J’me off at Penn Square Mall and we shop for 4 hours while he goes home to take a nap. We find some funny, inappropriate Christmas gifts for our friends at work and leave them in Mr. Saffle’s trunk at the airport. And then it’s back to the airport to start over! Prayer: “Dear God, thank you for keeping us safe from the fog. Please see us safely to Vegas tonight, Amen.” We board the plane, and fly to Dallas, and then to Vegas. I’m here!!! Finally in Vegas!!! Who-hoo!!!

While the Strip is only about five minutes from the airport, allot yourself 1 hour to get to your hotel by airport shuttle. We were all excited to see our hotel. The conference booked us in the Fremont in downtown Vegas (old Vegas). Pulling up to the doors, there were brilliant lights everywhere and it looked beautiful! I couldn’t wait to see my room! We check in and I see my room. Prayer: “Dear God!” The place is a dump. The bed is a rollaway on wheels and the room has a musty, dirty smell. Oh well, let’s make the best of it, right? I mean, from what I understand, I won’t be spending much time in this room anyway, right??? At, 3:00am, I finally crawl into bed, close my eyes, and pray: “Dear God, please don’t let there be bed bugs in my sheets”. Just as I am drifting off, I hear something. What is that? Sounds like water. I turned off the sink after washing my face, didn’t I? Yes… so I get up to investigate and find my bathroom under water! It’s pouring, not dripping, from the ceiling! I call the front desk and they send the engineer, who tells me I have to move to another room. I pack up my stuff and move down the hall. It’s now 4:00am and I am back in bed, and finally get some sleep. Prayer: “Dear God, please don’t let this be an indication of how this trip is going to go”. 

Tuesday:

7:00am wake-up and go to take a shower. The bathroom lights don’t work. Engineer returns, fixes lights and I call John to tell him about my eventful trip thus far. John warns me that a huge snow storm is moving into Oklahoma and we may be stuck in Vegas longer than expected! Prayer: Dear God, please… if we get stuck anywhere, let it NOT BE HERE! Let us get stuck at the airport in Dallas…please!!!” I shower and get ready for the training seminar. Everyone attending looks tired. They had been partying all night. I look tired because I had been traveling and playing musical hotel rooms all night. But that’s ok. This training should be awesome! The man leading it pioneered Teen Court, so he must be amazing to learn from! He introduces himself as “Scott Peterson, not-the-murderer”. He has brought along two guest speakers of high notoriety. Well, I won’t bore you with details about his training, but let’s just say that we learned nothing. He had a ton of handouts, with no curriculum, no plan, and no personality. Scott used to work for the government and went on Nightline ratting them out for misappropriation of Federal Grant money. I don’t think he will ever work for the government again. Scandal! That’s good to have in your bio when trying to get a room full of people to respect you and your program! Nice. He was hit by a car a while back (told us that story 3 times) and he scratches his face A LOT. I am thinking it must be the pain meds he takes making him itch, but really, I am praying it’s not bed bugs! His 1^st guest gets up and gives a lengthy speech about himself and how his son was the inventor of Viagra. I Googled it… I can’t find his son’s name attached to Viagra at all… but nevertheless, this is his claim to fame, so whatever! What about Teen Court? What does the little blue pill have to do with Teen Court? Prayer: “Dear God, just get me through til lunch so I can enjoy the amazing buffet”! The buffet sucked.

We all decide being stuck would be awful, so we call and change our flight to Wednesday afternoon. Quite honestly, at this point, I am over it and ready to get home anyway. I just hope I don’t drag bedbugs with me! So, we have one night to enjoy Vegas. Oh well! After this horrible training is over, I am ready to enjoy my time seeing the sights. Scott not-the-murderer Peterson spends the entire afternoon showing us website after website and scratching his face. Prayer: “Dear God, please.”

Training is finally over for the day and we go to the bar and have a couple of drinks before dinner. Dinner is another crappy buffet. Okay, no more buffets in Vegas for me… I want to walk away having ONE really amazing meal! We walk up and down Old Vegas and see a few interesting street performers and a really cool light show. Then we played in the casino for a while and went to bed by 10:00. That’s it. All-in-all a fun evening. 

Wednesday:

7:00am wake-up. I go into my bathroom to wash my face and take a shower. I throw back the shower curtain and find the tub filling with blackish brownish water that smells like poo. Prayer: “Dear God, are you kidding me? This is no longer funny. I can handle being in a room that is kinda dirty, but showering in shit is not okay with me!” The engineer comes back (does he live here? He is ALWAYS here!) and I go down the hall to shower in J’me’s room. We check out of the hell hole hotel and give our luggage to the bellman to hold onto. And now, we are off to more boring training with itchy Scott not-the-murderer Peterson. More websites. I would rather be in the shit shower than sitting in this room! No breaks… 4 solid hours of websites. I am done. No longer listening to him, J’me and I play the dot game and I win. Which is good since I didn’t win the night before playing slots! The second guest speaker gets up. He is a 2 star General and he talks at length about how he can’t spell, so his wife did most of his work for him in college, earning him a Bachelor’s and a Master’s. Nice. He shares with us that he loves patriotism and miniskirts… especially his wife in a miniskirt. Really? Teen Court… remember, that is why we are here??? That was it. I had had enough. We went to lunch and enjoyed the best meal we had in Vegas. A burger from a snack shop in the casino. We meet airport shuttle and get to the airport. Prayer: Dear God, please get me out of here!”

We board the plane. I am excited that I have a window seat and there is no one next to me. I get all three seats to myself! I can stretch out and sleep the 3 hour flight to Dallas! Yay! That dream was short-lived when a 400 pound fat man plopped down next to me taking up one and a half of the 2 empty seats next to me. He has body odor and tells me he had to move because the man next to him was gross. He was dipping and spitting into a bottle and the fat man couldn’t handle it. Prayer: “Dear God, if you make this man fall asleep, I will never sneak donuts in church again, I promise!” The fat man waits until we get in the air and proceeds to pull out a huge box of pizza, a container with a burger and fries, and 2 Bud Lights. He then gets his I-Pad set up on his belly and begins to eat, dropping crumbs and slurping beer. Shoot me now! Are you serious? When the flight attendant asks if I would like something to drink, I decide to drown my woes in a tiny bottle of wine… which I spilled all over myself…ugh! I get out my book and read. Just get me home.

We get to Dallas and the flight attendant tells us the connecting flight to OKC is at gate D28. We have 20 minutes to get there and it’s at the opposite side of the airport. Mr. Saffle and I are both hoping we have time for a potty break and we rush to the gate… only to find out the flight attendant was wrong and we have to go back to where we started. So, with full bladders, we race to the gate and barely make it in time. Prayer: “Dear God, don’t let me wet my pants in front of my bosses! Amen.” Again, I have a window seat with no one next to me. Until… a crazy woman plops down and leans over right into my face and talks to me. Here is our conversation:

Crazy lady: I am just moving from seat to seat and I will probably move again, so don’t take it personal.

Me: you have really bad breath.

CL: hahaha

Me: why don’t you just go back to the seat you are assigned to?

CL: someone was in my seat.

Me: tell them to move!

CL: no way! He looks like a grumpy old man!

Me: thinking to myself – look lady, you ain’t SEEN grumpy! I say to her, tell a flight attendant!

CL: I did… she told me to find another seat.

Prayer: “Dear God, keep me from punching her in the face, Amen.”

Well, she proceeds to spend the whole flight next to me, playing Monopoly on her I-Pad and yelling curse words at it every time she got a bad move. 

I finally land in OKC and John is waiting on me. He looks like an angel! I have never been so happy to be home! Prayer: Dear God, thank you for giving me John. He is a blessing!”

Finally home and in my pj’s, ready to climb into my bed… John yells to me, “oh no! The cat puked right in the middle of the bed!”

Prayer: “Dear God, I just want this nightmare to end. I think you have had enough fun for one week…”

Moral of the story: what happens in Vegas… wait! Nothing happened in Vegas! I didn’t love my hotel room, I didn’t enjoy the so-called training, I didn’t become a millionaire, and I didn’t get married! I don’t love miniskirts, Viagra, or anything itchy! I did have fun one night, but not the kind of fun that gave me any good stories to tell. Vegas sucked, the hotel sucked, the training sucked, the flights sucked, and the food sucked. I just want to stay home for the next few days and not go anywhere. So, moral of the story… Vegas can HAVE what stays there. And, don’t waste your time on things that are not important, because the only important thing in life is miniskirts, Viagra, and patriotism. AMEN! Oh, and don’t leave your inappropriate Christmas gifts in your bosses trunk, because then you have to spend the next few days saying, “Dear God, please don’t let him look in our shopping bags!”