Somehow, the way he makes the sandwich buy semaglutide online means I actually eat mayonnaise, a substance I usually detest. Driving against the traffic (everyone else was heading back from the weekend away and oh what a stream of headlights we saw crawling along) we were hypnotized by the flashing lights of an outlet mall/casino combo at the border – Stateline, Nevada – and stopped in. Great bargains for men’s wear, not so great for women’s wear – but we didn’t do a thorough search.
On that Vegas trip, we dragged our battered garment bag, with a freshly broken strap, across the lush marble-floored lobby, looking like refugees. We entered our suite-like room – with its canopy bed, step down tv lounge and huge marble bathroom (two sinks, a shower and a huge tub), pulled out the nice champagne we’d brought along in our cooler, pulled out our travel champagne glasses (if they break we don’t care) and put on the plush robes the Venetian provides.
A cable movie and champagne shook the dust off the road trip. The next couple of days in Vegas sometimes means the spa for me, for sure the sports bar for John, and our search for the stranger slot machines to play. The “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not” slots actually reward you for answering trivia questions. Vegas is not really about thinking, but the times we’ve played the game we’ve gotten a few interested onlookers impressed with our ability to pull facts out of our brains.
We toyed with the idea of hanging around the machines having a cocktail and helping other players answer their bonus questions but decided against it. Along the strip, the Barbary Coast has maintained its original kitsch, sandwiched between lush hotels who doubtless are sporadically trying to buy them out. The tables there are friendly and attract a mixed crowd of fairly low stakes players. Like, a lot of hotels, dealers display where they are from on their name tag.
A tall, blond Czechoslovakian dealer at the Barbary Coast took John’s blackjack stake away with breathless speed and efficiency. Was she paid by how many cards she dealt? She was so fast that the dealer at the next table actually seemed mad at her for ruining everyone’s fun. His attitude was “This is the Barbary Coast, we don’t do that here”. Good thing the sports book paid off for John phenomenally.