My little trip to Las Vegas: Where I chat up a hooker for 30 minutes and get stood up by a waitress

The "Strip" is for suckers, if you plan to go to Vegas make sure you visit downtown instead. Downtown is where the action is. And by action I mean you can pay 1,000 dollars for a hand-job. I don't recommend you paying a thousand dollars for a hand job, but that's your business. Because of the high price for call girls downtown, I can't imagine what a hand job goes for on the strip. I would imagine you'd have to sell your house to get one.

I have this thing for homeless people, maybe because I'm almost one of them. Also I love strippers and hookers and drug addicts, so I could never tear myself away from the Downtown xperience. Maybe it's just because I fancy myself some kind of Faux-Bukowski. Twice I've tried applying to the post office for a job. They turned me down each time.

Whenever I visit the Freemont Street Experience I tend to overdose a bit on the good times one can have stealing sips of drinks off of homeless drunk girls, staring out at the stretch marked bellies of 25 year old pregnant chicks as they stumble through the casino slot area pounding down 3 foot high frozen drinks.

"Is your friend preggars?" I ask the friend of the obviously drunk and obviously pregnant woman. The friend is ugly, repugnant really and I would rather hit on her friend, the pregnant girl. But first I want to make sure that she really is pregnant. Neither of these girls is worth wasting my time on if they aren't such alcoholics that they will continue to drink in public at 6 months with child.

"Oh, no!" She slurs at me lasciviously. "She just had her baby." Neither girl can walk in their high heels. Both have that drunken sheen in their eyes that says they are ready to party. They head towards me.

"I call bullshit!" I scream to my friend. There is no way she had given birth yet, her belly is still hard, and if there is one thing I know about pregnant women it's that the belly gets not only fat, but hard. I chickenshit my way out of there and head out back on to the sidewalk. I make my way down the urine soaked street until I get to my favorite casino in Vegas. Mermaids. Say it with me my brother, Mermaids!

Mermaids is home to the one dollar fried Twinkie and lavish give aways. To prove how much people win in this casino they hang posters over the entrance. One poster in particular is beckoning to me, it tells me of the great luck a man named Jimmie had in March of 1984. Jimmie won 10,000 dollars on a progressive slot jackpot. I want to call Jimmie of Youngstown, Ohio and ask him if it's true. Or did the check bounce when he tried to cash it?

Mermaids greets you at the door in style with a real life Las Vegas Show Girl. At least the hostesses are supposed to be showgirls. Maybe these girls could have been showgirls at one time. But most are crack addicts now. Pitted faces from scratching at the "bugs." Pot bellies from bastard children scar their stomachs. They hand me Mardi Gra beads and then a raffle ticket. Every thirty minutes they call out a number. If your number is called you get to spin a wheel. If the wheel spins just right you could get 50 bucks in hard cold cash. I have to hand the ticket over to a waitress as soon as I make it inside. She tears it in two and hands me back my half.

"Want a drink?" she asks.

"Sure, a beer."

"What kind Icehouse or Miller?"

I decide to go with the Miller because I can't believe Icehouse is still being made. My guess is beneath the ground at Mermaids lies a large enough vat of Icehouse beer to to stage an Olympic styled water Ski show.

After a considerable wait my waitress returns with my beer. I notice she is white trash in recovery. Her hair is short and frizzy like she's had one to many bad perms. She tries to hide the condition of the hair by coloring it purple. But she is so not punk. Unless having stretch marks makes you punk. We chat her up. Tell her she is the best looking girl. She tells us how she was into drugs three years ago. I guess that her kid is three. She looks at me with awe.

"How'd you know?" She asks.

I tell her I have some strange talents. I get a few more beers. Then I get few more beers. Finally I get a few more beers from the girl. My five dollar tip is paying off, she is practically running to bring me a beer. I tell her I lost 4,000 dollars playing poker at the Bellagio. I tell her I will buy her drugs if she will hang out with me.

I ask her what time she gets off work. She tells me 2:30 am. I tell her I will be playing black jack at a casino nearby and to stop by after work. She promises to. She swears to. She asks me to stop drinking for the next 4 hours because she'd like to hang out with me, and I 'd better be able to perform, she warns me. I promise to stop drinking and I leave Mermaids with a goofy smile on my face.

I walk out side to a beer vendor next door. I order 2 red bulls and vodka. I complain about the 14 dollar charge. I stare into the biggest cleavage I have seen all night. The same two fat girls have sold frozen drinks and shots here for years. But "god they have big tits," I tell them. They agree.

I walk to another casino and see a girl with big tits. A blonde around 22 years old. I'd walked past her before, carrying a beer and screaming with delight. "Big tits!" She smiled back at me. So I am lucky to see her again. I climb up next to her bar stool and order a drink. I chat this girl up for 30 minutes. I leave to check on my friend when I return she is gone. I ask the bartender, "Hey, what happened to that girl I was talking to?"

"You mean the hooker?" He replies with an air of rebuke. Or at least I am sure he was being condescending, but I was drunk, so maybe he was disappointed that I didn't get to fuck her.

"Only a hundred bucks." He tells my friend.

"That's it?" Now I am the one who is disappointed. But I don't mind, I know I have a "hot" white trash slut waiting for me at 2:30 am. I play Paigow Poker instead of black jack. I drink the whole time. I wait until 7 am. At 7 I decide she is not coming to meet me after all. I head to bed. I will see her tomorrow. I will chastise her. And she will bring me a beer. She will try to soothe me, she will tell me she stopped by the casino and looked for me. I will believe her. I will ask her out again and she will have an excuse ready this time. She's got to pick up her kid tonight. She can't hang out. I don't care, because I just won $50.79 in penny slots while talking to her. I have to wait for an attendant to come hand pay me. I think I drink three beers waiting to get paid. Life is good.