To be a young, middle-class Midwestern liberal on vacation in Las Vegas is a strange thing. It's like being on a distant planet.
Over break, I spent five days in Las Vegas with two friends. We did the usual Vegas-strip stuff. No, not what you're thinking. No prostitutes. Sorry to disappoint.
As my brother so succinctly put it, we treated Las Vegas like Madison with better weather, no bar time, legal gambling and eight-dollar drinks. It was a lot of fun. But I do not belong there. The people who believe they do belong made that clear.
On the first night in the casino, I pulled three dollars out of my pocket and slapped them down at the roulette wheel. The dealer (or whatever you call the humorless person who gets paid to spin a wheel and take drunk people's money) gave me a look of contempt I can't describe in English. He looked shocked and insulted, as if the bills were three green-tinted pictures of his mother having sex with Joseph Stalin.
\This is a 10-dollar minimum table,"" he said, barely restraining his contempt, clearly wanting to hit me in the face with the small wooden rake he was using to hoe in money from customers willing to obey the ""$10.00 Minimum"" sign he now was angrily jabbing at.
With the small dignity I could muster, I picked up my three dollars and dutifully lost them in a slot machine. I wanted to go back and prove to the dealer that I wasn't stupid. I would challenge him to a spelling contest, or ask him to name the capitals of all 50 states. But I had recently nailed down a few rather stiff drinks, so my chances of recalling the capital of Delaware were slim.
Later in the trip, my friend Dave went on a hot streak against an old, resentful blackjack dealer. He was my hero for bilking those rude casino folk, so I went in search of beers for both of us.
At the bar I encountered an underage-looking gentleman in a Boston Celtics Paul Pierce jersey, with a matching backwards baseball cap. He had on several gold chains, and I think more than one watch. He was arguing with a young man in a velvet warm-up suit with his arm around a good-looking young woman.
""I'm not afraid to put a bitch in check,"" the imitation Pierce said to his velvety counterpart. He went on to explain, in language laced with violent intimations toward women, that he was all about having a good time, and that Vegas was his turf.
Whether the mayor had awarded him the key to the city for his tireless devotion to the Boston Celtics and ""checking bitches,"" I didn't know. By this point I was giggling pretty hard, and I was a bit drunk, so I was looking right at him when I lost it and started laughing really hard.
He shot a hard-ass glare in my direction. I waved him off and walked away with my beers.
If Sin City is the Pierce replica's turf, I would gladly concede it to him. It's clearly not mine. I don't really gamble and I certainly don't ""check bitches."" And when an old hooker in orange eye makeup hits on me at the Fatburger down the road from my hotel, as a matter of personal policy, I'll always politely decline.
dlhinkel@students.wisc.edu.
