6/19/2011 - necessity breeds innovation. . .

The year I turned 21, I took a solitary road trip to Vegas, thinking I would have as much fun as I did when I went with friends.  Not so.  After a day and a half, I had lost spent my entire budget of $150 dollars with 24 more hours left before I could check out.  Quite the feeling, actually, to be in a city with a seemingly infinite number of things to do, but only to find out that all of it, without exception, operated on the one thing I had none of.  And I had no company to commiserate with.

But necessity breeds innovation, so I got creative.  I woke up on my last full day in the city with nothing in my pocket but keys and an empty wallet, and drove to the Mandalay Bay, the Strip's southernmost hotel.  I slipped past the security guard in the elevator lobby by tailing a boisterous Chinese family, smiling and pretending like I belonged with them. 

I rode up to an arbitrary floor, stepped out, and looked down the halls to find a housekeeping cart.  I walked by, said hello to the worker, and asked for a set of toiletries, explaining that I had ran out and housekeeping hadn't been by.  I remember she smiled, apologized, and filled a plastic bag with handfuls of mini-bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and lotion.  Score.

I then walked to the Luxor right next door, and repeated the process.

By mid-afternoon, I amassed sets of toiletries from nearly every major hotel on the Strip.  Some, I requested from housekeeping like I did at Mandalay Bay.  Some, I flat out stole from unattended carts.  At Bally's, I "stumbled" into the storage room and indiscriminately grabbed as many mini-bottles as I could before cheesing it out of there.  At Caesar's Palace, I called housekeeping from the lobby with an elaborate story of checking out prematurely without a souvenir set to bring home to my wife.  Someone actually ran down and brought me an unopened "gift" package of nice Aveda stuff.

From tower-shaped bottles at the Stratosphere to African-themes ones at the now-defunct Aladdin, I grabbed them all.  By the time I got back to my hotel room, I had probably spent a total of seven dollars all day at the McDonald's in Circus Circus with nothing else to show for my time but sore feet and a 20-pound bag of miscellaneous toiletries. 

That's how you do Vegas as a broke 21-year-old.

10 years later, my budget has grown some, as has my money management skills.  I have left my petty theft phase in the past, along with my frantic gamble-as-much-as-I-can phase.  But because of that trip, I can navigate up and down the Strip and into each casino's parking structure like a native Las Vegan.

But long story not as long as it could be, all I really meant to say is that Sam, my family, and I have three days of Vegas waiting for us, and I am jittery with excitement to meet them, as much so as the first time, as much as all the times that followed

(And as a disclaimer, I may or may not post while I'm out, and if I do, the blog will likely experience a Vegas-themed stretch until at least Wednesday.  However, in the spirit of a vacation, I am giving myself some leeway by exploring the possibility of disappearing for a few days.)