As you may have been able to determine by the lack of posts (and also by the fact that I told you (thought you were clever, didn't you!)), I was in Vegas again last week. For the second time. In a month.
Aside from having developed a mild form of epilepsy, I had a perfectly fine little time.
More importantly, though, so did my sister (the furniture burning one). She had never been to Vegas, and she got right in the swing of things, almost immediately understanding the state of disrepair one's moral sense should be in while getting a slot machine tan:
Sister: [just after having entered the hotel room] Hey - what's in this closet?
Me: Don't know. Don't care.
Sister: Bathrobes!
Me: Now I know. Still don't care.
Sister: [approaching me, wearing a bathrobe over her clothing] Well, I'm ready - let's go out.
There's something dirty about wearing a bathrobe over your clothing at 6:00 PM. It's like waking up in a hotel room, blinds drawn, feeling like it's 5:00 in the morning, and then discovering that the AM/PM indicator on the clock radio next to the bed is indicating that it is, in fact, 5:00 PM. Rolling out of bed, feeling like there's a semi in your head that's trying to back out of a tight parking spot, you stumble over to the blinds, open them, and are blinded with the light of a thousand suns. Turning away, you briefly catch your reflection in a mirror and see the chocolate frosting on one side of your face, caked vomit on the other, and a garter belt gripping your neck. It looks like there's some dried blood running down your forehead, you have a new tattoo, and one of your nipples is missing.
That's what it feels like to wear a bathrobe at dinner time. It feels dirty. It's the first step into a life of corruption and distortion of one's sense of Right and Wrong.
But sis didn't seem to have a problem with it. Unlike me, however, she's been desensitized to scenes of such depravity by the many hundreds of thousands of hours of television she's recorded on her TiVo. Me? I'm still living a quaint country life with nothing more morally offensive than the internet to sully the white satin lining of my innocent little soul. In other words, my sister watches reality television, and I sometimes "accidentally" watch people making love to horses. Which do you think is more morally damaging?
But I've strayed from the topic.
The point here is that my sister was getting into Vegas like a showgirl gets into a PVC dominatrix outfit. Not that that actually happened. I mean, that'd be gross to be hanging out with your sister in a dominatrix outfit. It's just an analogy. It's not reality. I made it up. For you.
But I'm straying again.
The one thing that my sister, a smoker and native of the San Francisco area, couldn't comprehend was the right to smoke inside. When she learned this fact, she was in a state of disbelief. I could hear her mumbling to herself:
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree...
If you try to smoke inside in San Francisco, you will, within no less than five (5) Earth minutes, be:
- Tarred and feathered
- Sent to the public square and bound in gallows
- Picketed by InstaProtestersTM - These are people who wait around with blank signs and felt pens to protest whatever comes up (they also come in powdered form, and can be reconstituted anywhere, anytime)
Californians don't take kindly to smoking, and especially not to smoking inside. It was, for this reason, that my sister could not figure out if Vegas was a dream or reality. She is a thing without religion, but seemed utterly convinced that she must have recently been slain in battle, sent to Valhalla, and was awaiting the evening that she could dine in a festival of unrestrained decadence with Odin Himself.
She was, you must understand, excited.
And scared.
At first she expressed some concern about this smoking inside stuff, saying that she felt like she would "...be peeing in [her] pants in a public place" if she were to pull out a Capri Menthol and light up in the Disney Store (which I encouraged her to do).
But, as with any great social and cultural upheaval, she came around in time, accepting Vegas as her new god and master to whom she would sacrifice, inside, the few remaining living cells of her lungs.
The whole process went something like this...
I don't know where mom and dad went wrong with her. One day she was playing with her My Little Pony collection, and the next she was lighting up with her Cabbage Patch Kids.
On an entirely different note, we had quite a few interesting discussions. It fascinated me that she came to the exact same conclusion as I did about my Dvorak post (which you will not be able to find since I took it down). This is what she said: "It's like you crossed your own limits that you defined for yourself."
That pretty much sums it up.
She said a lot of other things, too. She mentioned that I'm an ungrateful, egotistical, self-centered, rude little bastard.
I don't entirely disagree with her, either, which sucks. It certainly gave me a lot to talk about with my shrink this week (though sis has always been there to give me material for shrink sessions).
Anyway, it was good. It made me want to weep like a little baby, but it was good.
And fun.