MattMaroon.com

I had a few interesting experiences in Las Vegas already. For one, on a trip from Caesars Palace to Wynn I encountered three beggars. I’ve been here more times than I can count and have never seen one before. I asked one “why don’t you learn to play a card game for your money like the rest of us?” Sure he had no legs, but his arms worked well enough to hold out a sign.

A few blocks later I was approached by four very thuggish guys. And by thuggish I mean they made Little John look like Winnie the Pooh. They tried to sell me a CD which they described as “the 12 hardcorest gangsta rap tracks” I ever heard. That wouldn’t have been so odd, except they singled me out of a large number of passers-by and I was wearing a bright orange cable knit sweater from Brooks Brothers and khakis. I don’t think I could possibly have looked any whiter. I was dressed like the kind of guy who might say yes if you offered him a Barry Manilow CD, and yet they chose me out of a crowd to peddle their hardcore gangsta CD to. I guess it’s true what they say, game really does recognize game.

When I politely declined one of them asked me where I was from. I told him Ohio and he said “Oh, I’m from Chicago. Midwest in the house!” and then gave me that new version of the high-five that the kids all do these days where you bump fists. I really feel like he and I bonded too, because there are only maybe 100 million people living in the Midwest. It’s not that often you encounter one. I imagine it’s a bond on the level of the one people who stormed the beaches in Normandy together have.

Then at the Wynn I was talking with some friends in the high limit slot room. It was a really noisy place and my voice was almost entirely gone from my cold. I looked over and saw the back of a guy’s jacket that said “Got Game?” One friend finished a sentence and I said “But the question is, do you got game?” Sure enough at the exact moment I said it every machine in the entire casino stopped buzzing and my vocal chords decided to function for the first time in hours, so of course the guy heard it.

He looked over and everyone started laughing. Everyone but me of course, because I saw that he was Asian and immediately started to worry that he might be a ninja. You really can’t spot a ninja until they sever your head with one quick chop, so I knew right away that I had to be on my guard. Luckily he was just another degenerate and I escaped unscathed.

Also, one friend cut his own hair using nail-clipper scissors on a break during a poker tournament. I don’t have a punch line for that. I can’t. I’m just not that funny.

This entry was posted on February 23, 2007 at 7:05 am and is filed under Me Thinking So You Don't Have To . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed Both comments and pings are currently closed.