13 days to go!!

I'm thirteen days away from my trip to Vegas....I was promoted to manager of the restaurant I work at in March, under new ownership, and I have worked one really long summer....been waiting for this trip for over three months now as I have only had about ten days off since the beginning of July. I am at once, excited, but nervous about leaving work as it seems whenever I take a day off, I come back to some minor disaster, crisis, or screw up. I have resigned myself to just fixing what's broke when I get back.

You know that feeling you get in Vegas when it's 3, 4, 5, 6, maybe even 7 am, and you've got the curtains closed as tight as they will go so that not a sliver of light gets through...and you are laying in bed with a pillow over your head trying to drown out the sounds of the slot machines, the dealers, the people...even after brushing your teeth you can still taste the booze on your tongue and feel the $1.99 breakfast in your stomach....in your head you're replaying that bad beat at the poker table that knocked you out of the $50 buy-in tournament, that you played because you love the game, but also because deep down you wish you were playing on TV for millions and it's one heck of a story (no matter what the outcome) to tell your friends at home...that feeling that you wish sleep really was overrated and that you weren't in bed but back downstairs, playing, gambling, drinking, absorbing every last drop of Vegas...And after four hours of semi-sleep your back up and ready to go again? I can't wait for that feeling....

But as it gets closer and closer to vacation time for me....I'm finding that I'm sleeping less and less....dreaming of Vegas wakes me up. Only instead of the feelings I've described above...I've won not only the Wheel of Fortune progressive jackpot, but also the Megabucks for $36,000,000 and I'm calling my boss and telling him that I'm staying a little while longer...I'm packing my bags at the Plaza and hopping into a 1959 Cadillac Coupe DeVille, pink (because I'm no longer punk), and moving to the penthouse suite at the Wynn...where I get to play poker with Johnny Chan, Layne Flack and Jennifer Harmon...and then I wake up...and I can't get back to sleep because it was too beautiful. It's fun to dream.

Just had to write that down...thought I'd share. Anyone else have that problem just before a trip, where you start losing sleep because you can't stop dreaming of Vegas? I feel like I should be banking my sleep because I'm not getting much while I'm there.