TR: From bad to worse to..........??? Nov 2014 (mostly downtown)

I had just been in Vegas in mid-October so I didn’t expect to go back so quickly. However, 4 Queens sent a VP tournament offer and it sounded fun. Everyone always laughs at us because we stay on the Strip 95% of the time (last 3 trips have been Cosmopolitan, Mirage and MGM), but for some reason, we have a spot in our hearts for the 4 Queens. Yeah, it is hard to go from 4 Queens back to Bellagio, but there’s something endearing about the “old gal”. LOL

(WARNING: SOME LANGUAGE)


Thursday November 13th

I arrived in Vegas at 9am. My husband wasn’t showing up until next day. I went up to play VP at CBC at 4Q and to catch up with my favorite bartenders there. I was playing and drinking for about 3 hours and then I met some random local guy also playing VP. We were both winning and having a grand old time, so we decided to take the WAX bus up to the strip. (I don’t even know why we took the WAX bus since we were going to the Yardhouse, but hey, alcohol makes you do stupid shit.) I wanted to meet up with a poker player from home who was also in town. We met a drug dealer on the bus and at one point, the bus driver pulled over to yell at us to be quiet or get off, but whatever! LOL

(For the record, I would never ever ever betray my husband in any way, nor am I a floozy. I just make friends really easily. LOL)

Outside of Bally’s, l saw the “Christian guys”. You know, the guys with the “Vegas is evil, repent!” signs. I told them I had seen them so many times before and thought it was really admirable what they did, standing out there early/late/etc, probably getting a lot of shit from drunk people. I gave the guy a $100 bill and told him to do some good work with it. He didn’t want to take it at first (and the random guy was telling me not to), but I said it was okay. I told the random guy that if the Christian guy did something good with it, great! If he kept it for himself, that’s his karma, not mine.

We meet up with my poker friend at Yardhouse and have some beers, plus the requisite Fireball shots. Then, we go on the High Roller with the all-you-can-drink car. Awesome. I should have known I was pretty drunk at this point because I bought my HR ticket from the box office, instead of taking like 3 mins to buy it on my phone from Groupon and save some money. Oh well. After the High Roller, we go have some beers at Tilted Kilt. That was fun. Met some random people at TK and hung out with them for a while. Then poker dude said he was going back to his hotel and I decided I am going to gamble for a bit before heading back downtown.

Only photo I got from the High Roller. LOL


I made it to the bathroom at the Flamingo…….. Threw up, duh. I realized I hadn’t eaten anything for like 14 hours with all this alcohol, so I go grab a slice of pizza from the nasty food court I swore I would never go to again…… I go to the register to pay and…….. FUCK, WHERE IS MY PURSE????

I am completely clueless as to where I left it and still too drunk to retrace my steps. I don’t have a phone, no wallet, no cash, no ID, NOTHING. So, I am alone on the Strip with NOTHING and no way to reach any friends or my husband. What should I do?

EDITED TO ADD: The food court is literally 20 steps to the bathroom where my purse is. I was such a dumbass!!!

I do the only thing I can think of at this point. I am going to walk back to my hotel downtown…. From the Flamingo. At 2am. Alone.

It was pretty uneventful from the Flamingo to Wynn. Around the Wynn, some guy starts chatting me up and I’m still walking. He was going to his car at CC. He offers me a ride downtown (ha, no thanks) or to use his phone (also no thanks). He was harmless and seemed to be really concerned about me walking any further by myself. I told him not to worry, being murdered actually sounds appealing compared to how pissed my husband was going to be.

It was an interesting walk. Around the time I hit The STRAT , I realize that I probably left my purse at the Flamingo. But, what was I going to do? Turn around and go back HOPING it is there? And if it isn’t, I’m in the same predicament as a couple hours ago. By the way, for going through such a “sketchy” area that everyone speaks of, I only encountered one person on the street. In a box. One car pulled up and asked if I needed anything, but I said I was fine.

Oh, did I mention I wore wedge sandals the entire day/night and on my walk? Yeah, that was fun. My calves hurt the rest of the trip.

I finally get to 4Q, go to the front desk and I explained the situation. I don’t have room keys either, obviously. Security lets me into my room after I verify contents. It is now about 4am and that means my husband is getting ready to leave the house for his flight. I call him and explain what happened. I tell him to grab my passport in case we don’t get my purse back so I have some sort of ID to get home. Then I say, “hey, just try to call the Flamingo and maybe by chance, they found it.” (I didn’t bring my tablet so I had no way to look up the phone number myself.) Haha, yeah right.

Husband calls me back and says my purse was turned into Flamingo security and they have it. They won’t verify contents until we go pick it up. Well, that is a step in the right direction. Thank God for room service since I haven’t had anything to eat or drink in like 18 hours. Turns out I wasn’t really hungry, just wanted the screwdriver and water that I ordered. LOL I slept for about 2 hours and got up to get ready.


Friday November 14th


(My “days” go by when I go to sleep and wake up, not from midnight to midnight. LOL)

My husband arrives at the hotel around 10am. I have showered and am all ready to head up to the Strip except my makeup bag is also in my purse! Shit! Well, I guess we might be making a stop at Sephora for replacements. We take a cab to the Flamingo.

Security guy takes us down to the lost and found. There is a TON of shit in there!!! LOL He asks if he can go into my purse to get my ID to confirm it is mine. I’m like “of course, I’m pretty sure everyone else in the world has by now anyway.” He hands me my purse. At this point, I am just glad to have my leopard Coach bag back! Phone is in there. Wallet is in there. Tory Burch sunglasses are in there. All my credit cards are in there. All my makeup is in there. Look in the cash spot of my wallet and it’s empty…. EXCEPT for a little piece of paper that says $401.00. I ask the guy what’s this and he said they can’t keep cash in lost and found. I need to take the receipt to the cage to get my money back there.

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I tell my husband he can’t be pissed at me now because I got everything back. He said something along the lines of “you have got to be fucking kidding me.”

I asked the lost and found guy where my purse was found. He said it was found hanging on the back of the bathroom stall door. Then I asked if he knew who turned it in, because I’d like to take them out to dinner or give them a reward or something. He said it was turned in by a hotel guest who didn’t want to leave their name/number. WOW! This person had access to my purse and all my shit in a private place with no cameras and STILL turned it in. In Las Vegas? Where cash is king and desperation runs high? We were floored.

We got a cab and went back downtown so I could finally put on some damn eyeliner and mascara. We gambled at 4Q some and then I said we really need to go eat somewhere. We end up having some very good margaritas and fajitas at Cadillac Bar in GN. I’m pretty tired at this point, so I say we should play just about 30 more minutes and then I want to go to bed. We had no major hits at this point, I’d been staying pretty even after several $100 hits yesterday.

We sit down at machines next to each other. I hadn’t cashed out my $100 in FP yet, so I decided to do that. I pulled out $20. Lost. Pulled out another $20. Hit this about 6 hands later.





My first royal ever! We both looked at each other and said FINALLY! If it hadn’t have been for the previous 24 hour crap and total lack of sleep, I probably would have been a little more excited. I cashed out so I could take a picture and quickly cash it at the cage before the machine broke or something. LOL I played through the rest of my free play and we went to bed.


Saturday November 15th

Woke up feeling a lot better today. Went down to register for the VP tournament. Grabbed coffees and sandwiches at Dunkin and took them up to the room while hubby finished getting ready. Sat at the sportsbook bar at Fremont and played some VP. Played in my tournament, I was super nervous. Did OK, but didn’t hit anything big. I was playing on an end spot and this lady was sitting at the slot machines talking SO loud. I don’t even know who she was talking to. It was very distracting and I wanted to tell her to “shut the fuck up, people are trying to concentrate here!” but I didn’t. (Too sober yet.) We both played the Hangover slots for an hour or so and then just wandered around playing on different machines. I played a $5 slot and lost $100 in about 10 seconds, that was fun.

We went upstairs to change so we could go eat. We were finally making it to The Steakhouse at CC. It is one of the few steakhouses we hadn’t made it to in Vegas so far. The atmosphere is cool, but I wasn’t impressed with the steaks. Hubby got a steak and lobster tail and he said the lobster tail was way rubbery. My steak was meh. I’ve had way better at many places in Vegas. Oh well. We of course decided to play some carnival games. We even played air hockey. I barely won. It was funny that kids were standing there waiting for the grownups to get done. LOL

We walked across to the Riviera to go to the comedy club. We went early and went to the bar to get a drink. There were exposed water (or something) lines in the floor behind the bar and half the bar was closed. It also smelled god awful. We turned around and walked off. We had to buy drinks at the gift shop. I had to buy a Sprite and pour 2 minis in it. Lame. Comedy club was DEAD. There were maybe 30 people in the place. We almost walked out but it would have been pretty obvious with the lack of people. Both “comedians” sucked.

Cab back to downtown. Nothing exciting for the rest of the evening.


Sunday November 16th


Get up early and go to give the MSS brunch one last shot. (We tried it about 2 years ago and it was awful.) It is early so no line. There is this couple (I’d guess 70/75 years old) staring at us. I’m mean, seriously staring. Every single time I look at them, they are totally giving us the stink eye. Now, my husband is a few years older than me, but not anywhere near like Anna Nicole and that guy she married. I tell my husband if they are still there when we leave, I am going up to their table and tell them to fuck off. But she leaves first and her husband walks by our table (which was out of his way). He was definitely going to say something, but I think chickened out. This exact thing happened when we were there 2 years ago, except it was while we were standing in line. The only 2 times we’ve been there and the same thing happens twice? By the way, it was awful again. Now I have 2 reasons why I’ll never go back.

We get back to CBC at 4Q to park our asses where we planned to spend the entire day. It’s Chicago (me) vs Minnesota (hubby) game day. I had forgotten Pedialyte so I just went down to the gift shop to buy Gatorades (orange for me and purple for him… LOL) and bottled water since I knew today would be a marathon.

I was playing in the tournament around 1040. Didn’t do well today but at least I was less nervous. One lady got a royal each day so we all knew who was going to win. They did a drawing during each session today for a random $150 cash winner. They called my seat number! Yay, at least I won something!

 

Awesome report!

 

You had me at I got my purse back with everything in it!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Thanks for sharing your story. Glad you got all your stuff back. How much age difference is there between you and hubby? Maybe the old couple thought you were celebrities??

 

What a great TR, many thanks for sharing, those first 24 hours, wow!

 

Wow....

 

That was an awesome report! Your initial experiences with the lost bag and walking ALL THE WAY (you're my hero) Downtown from the Strip must have put a damper on your trip. But I'm glad things turned out fine (bag intact and a Royal to boot!).

That old couple staring both of you down troubles me. Why the hell can't people mind their own business is beyond me.

Anyway, enjoyed your report. Thanks again.

 

Wow! Which is the bigger win? Purse in tact, or that Royal! Nice report!

 

How funny.... I was going to type those exact words!!! Plus... I agree on the walk... that is one LONG-ASS walk, especially at THAT time and under THOSE circumstances.

da1chifan You are a TROOPER!!!!

 

Haha, thanks everyone!

As I like to say "He is a person who can drive older than me". Yet, I am the more mature one. (Except for this Vegas trip, obviously... LOL!!!!) It's all a good balance.

Haha, it was a damper on the trip until I got all my stuff back. Then I was in a much better mood! LOL Glad I'm not the only one who thought it was rude!

The purse was the biggest win!!!!! But still pretty damn happy to get the royal!

It was something like 4 miles. I looked it up on my phone at dinner the next night. Google kept trying to give me driving directions and I'm like, NO, I need WALKING directions. :wink

 

+1
A TROOPER wearing wedge sandals too! Oh the pain...

Quite the trip! Thanks for posting

 

Are you serious??? Walking alone from flam.... to downtown at night? They would have found me asleep on the floor in a dark corner .....no way do I have that much nerve.... wow. So glad you are ok and everything turned out without incident. Thanks for sharing.....

 

I figured, what is someone going to do - rob me?! :evillaugh

Although I did put my wedding rings in my small jeans pocket just so I really didn't appear to have anything to take. I've been in much more concerning situations on side streets in Chicago than that walk. There were a few things open along the way, the 7-11 past the Strat, a pawn shop or 2, etc. Only encountered the one guy that had this legs sticking out from the box over him and the guy that pulled up and asked if I was okay.

But yes, looking back, it was not one of the best decisions I've made in my life..... :wink

 

My wife dropped her billfold on casino floor in Ballys. Got to our room at Paris and had message it had been found (before she even realized it had fallen out of her purse). Same story. Everything from cash to credit cards was there. Security guy said it was very common. Said he thought most people were honest and would think about how they would feel if they lost theirs.

 

I'm glad she got it back.

I like to think most people are honest, but I also think Vegas can bring out the worst (and best) in people:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDDAeXD-jMg

 

Fun read. Double score on getting your purse (intact) back and also hitting the royal.

 

Well aren't we just a pair of drunk Coach bag losing fools! So glad it had a happy ending, you got everything back and nothing bad happened to you on your walk. Flamingo Security would likely have driven you back to the 4Q especially if you said you'd been over-served there.

I found a wallet just outside my door at Cosmo a couple of years ago. I turned it into Security so trust it got back to it's rightful owner intact.

That is really weird that couple staring at you. I wonder if they did think you were someone else.

We'll both have to be extra vigilant with our purses when enjoying beverages lol

 

Great report. Love the writing, felt like I was right with you on the walk after losing your purse.

 

I kid you not, my single favorite trip report I have read on this site in a few years. It even seems like things calmed down when the hubby arrived. Your husband is officially invited to my bachelor party out in vegas in June. And you NEED to be at my fiance's bachelorette party Memorial Day weekend. Everybody in her group is required to dress as a Disney princess. She is Snow White and will have 7 "little people" follow her around all night. I think you just might fit in...

 

Great report! Short and funny. Adventureous too. That walk is crazy... at that hour? With no food in 14hours? You must be a trooper and a helluva marathon runner. Anyways, glad it turned out well and a great trip. Sound like it was a memorable trip considering it was 5 months ago and you still remember most of it!