I recently had the opportunity to, once again, visit Vegas, and I was, once again, not disappointed by the level of tackiness and intemperate behavior.
I don’t go to Vegas to gamble, eat, drink…or be merry. Pretty much, the only reason I go is to watch my husband David race in a half marathon down the Strip. We do have friends who live there, AC and MB, so the monotony of the Las Vegas Strip is broken up by time with them, thankfully.
So, here’s what shocked me THIS time.
First, the characters along the strip who pose with tourists for pictures are well-known. Elvis, Stormtroopers, Marilyn Monroe…they are all there. But this year there was a new twist. Take a beloved cartoon character (think Mickey Mouse and Garfield), and sit them down in the middle of a bunch of empty beer and liquor bottles. How FUN is THAT?! Now you can look back on your photos from Vegas and remember the fantastic time you had, walking the Strip and having your photo taken with Drunk Mickey.
Then, because I don’t drink to get drunk, these posters I saw at the hotel we stayed in shocked me:
Evidently, if I got drunk, I could just take this pill, and all would be forgiven by my body. Nevermind the fact that the hangover is the body’s way of telling me I had too much to drink, and I shouldn’t do that again. With Forgiven I can skip the hangover and start drinking again. Can you say “bad idea”?
The last bit of evidence that the Las Vegas Strip is not for me — or anyone who doesn’t think getting smashed is all the makings of a good time — is the allowance of open intoxicants in public. I will, thankfully, never get used to seeing people walk down the street drinking alcoholic beverages, but worse was the drunken person walking down the middle of the race course, holding up his half-drunk bottle of whiskey, cheering the runners.
Maybe next year I can talk David into doing a half marathon in Indiana.
