Welcome to Las Vegas

When people think of Vegas, they typically conjure up images of strippers, gambling, booze and any other vices life has to offer, all adding up to the time of their life.  I, however, think of shitting myself in front of literally hundreds of people.  This is my story.

Circa 1995 (I was 13) my family took a trip to Las Vegas (as most families do of course).  We roamed around the streets that were covered with call girls ads, saw pirates dance, had magicians for waiters, bathed in pools with sand and even went on roller coasters.  Yet little did I know that something as innocent as Medieval Times at the Excalibur Hotel & Casino would change my life forever.

My Mom, Stepdad, sister, step sister and stepbrother headed in and took our seats in the Blue Knight’s section.  Due to obvious Cable Guy references, this was thrilling for me to say the least.  They brought out our meal of Cornish hens, corn and some kind of soup, all of which we ate with our fingers, paying homage to the table manners that helped spark the bubonic plague.  We finished and then the games began.

The Blue Knight was doing well when suddenly I had a bubbling in my stomach, much like a popular scene in Dumb & Dumber.  I took a few deep breaths and luckily it passed.  Two minutes later it returned with full force, prompting me to get out of my seat and run for the arena doors that led to the lobby.  Remember I’m a kid.  A Las Vegas lobby looks like a fucking carnival with all the lights and noises, and the focus is on where you can bet the most money rather than a well lit restroom sign.  I sprinted around, at this point, ass cheeks clinched with both hands, praying for help from above.  Unfortunately, no help was given and my ass exploded right then and there.  In an instant, my cream, corduroy shorts turned rich brown as this abomination rushed down my leg to the casino floor.  As people stopped in their tracks, it seems like all the wonderfully loud sounds a casino has to offer came to a grinding halt.

I ran.

I ran into a door marked no admittance and quickly found myself walking around the underbelly of a very large hotel/casino praying to stumble upon a sink.  Instead I found an old supply cupboard full of cherry drink concentrate that I used to drown my brown shorts in hopes of covering the smell and color.  Who would’ve guessed, this only made things worse. 

Out of options I decided to run back to my hotel (MGM) to discard the shitty clothes and change and return just before they started to notice i was gone.  In doing so I saw that I had been gone for about 2 1/2 hours and that anonymity was a lost cause.  On my sprint back to the Excalibur I thought up a great story to exonerate me. 

“This guy followed me to the bathroom, and then he tried to make me go with him, so I ran back to our hotel.  Then after escaping from his sights I rushed back to the room and changed so that if he saw me, he wouldn’t recognize me.  It was so scary, Mom.  Thank God its over.  Let’s pretend it never happened.”  It occurred to me that I might have to file a police report and describe the guy too, but I had it covered.  By 13, I could lie my way out of anything.

As I entered the lobby the first thing I heard was my name announced over the loud speaker.  “Oh no.  Just keep your cool,” I said to myself, “You can do this.”  At that moment I was rushed by my siblings demanding an explanation and letting me know how distraught my mother was.  Then I saw my Mom.  She was being held up by my stepdad and 2-3 security guards.  It appeared as if she had already begun to cope with the fact that her firstborn son had been kidnapped or worse.  Her tear-drenched eyes looked up and saw me, unharmed and in different clothes, and she ran towards me.  Somewhere in her sprint, her sadness turned into fury as she wound her arm up to hit me as hard I had ever been hit.  The security guard grabbed her arm but her momentum propelled into me as she grabbed my clothes and screamed “WHERE WERE YOU?”

Scared and humbled by the only creature on this earth I knew would see right through my bullshit, I uttered, “I shit myself.  I’m sorry.”