The Holidays in Las Vegas - A Rant

The wife and I just returned from several days in Las Vegas, where we wined, dined , gambled, gamboled, and generally had a swell time. But I am compelled to offer up some observations and criticisms. To wit:

  1. I will save the general disgust with people who drive Hummers and Escalades for elsewhere, and concentrate to those specific microcephalic pig-fuckers who attempt to park said behemoths in ancient parking garages that were designed for passenger vehicles, not military ones. Listen, fuckwits! I don’t care if you spent $50,000 on that monument to your paramecium-sized penis. The sign says “Do Not Back In.” The sign is quite large, and directly over the parking space you are attempting to back into, holding up the 27 cars behind you in the garage for 15 minutes while you back and fill, back and fill, repeat ad nauseum. I hope karma bites your ass so hard she gets lockjaw. May your buffets never have crab legs, and may your hits always add up to 22.

  2. People with strollers on the Strip. Dear breeders: We are so glad you’ve managed to squeeze out yet another Ashley or Jason into the world. But guess what? Part of being a parent is losing some of your options in life. If you try to wheel that stroller down a crowded sidewalk filled with drunk tourists, little Ashley is going to get bumped, jostled, spilled upon, have her precious ears fouled with inappropriate language, and otherwise have things happen to her that her therapist will charge $75/hour to listen to in a few years. And when you tell me to watch what I say or where I am walking, while you take up 2/3 of the sidewalk with your little nuclear family grouping, and run right up on my heels because you were so busy giving the fruit of your loins an apple slice, don’t get pissy when I tell you to fuck off and die in front of your wife. Or when I comment on her ability to pop out house-apes, which is apparently quite amazing, seeing as how you had two in the stroller and one in the oven. Just stay home or stay the fuck out of the way of people trying to get down the street.

  3. Hillbillies on their first trip to Sodom & Gomorrah. Yo, Ezra! The correct place for gawking at the big buildings and all the neon isn’t in the middle of the fucking sidewalk! Take a hint from the Asian visitors to the Big City, who generally know enough to move to the side in a wide area before attempting to document their descent into the Abyss with that new digital camera Aunt Mae got them for Christmas.

  4. Whales on scooters in the casino. In packs. Enough said.

PS. To the dude at the crap table last night, whom I bankrupted: If you hadn’t insisted on being a wrong bettor, you would have scored big like the rest of us. Don’t get pissed off with me because you thought betting the “Don’t Pass” line heavily was the way to make money.

OMG, that made me laugh. Do people really bring kids to Vegas? I’ve never been. Are they allowed in casino’s and shows? That must go over big.

I’m in 100% agreement with everything in your post–in fact, more than 100%! Why more than 100%, you may ask? Because I fucking LIVE here! Try putting up with all the things in your rant EVERY FUCKING DAY OF YOUR LIFE!!!

What, only 2 kids? You got off light! How about the mega-extended family group of 15 or so Meskins walking 5 abreast on the sidewalk, except for the kids, who are trying to run into the street while Mama tries to take a picture of her grandma in front of the Siegfried and Roy statue?

Good rant all around. At least an 8!

IIRC, anyone under 18 cannot enter a casino floor unless attended by an adult guardian, and they cannot play any games or slot machines. They are allowed into most shows, the exceptions being the ones that are clearly intended for adults (they show boobs or shlong). Eighteen-year-olds aren’t supposed to drink alcohol, but I’ve never been carded nor seen anyone get carded.

Anyway, I’ve never understood parents who bring kids to Vegas when they intend on gambling there. More often than not, this results in the kids being left unattended for hours, either in the hotel room, pool, or lobby, with the expectation they won’t be bored out of their minds, that no one will mind them there, and that some guardian angel will keep them safe from harm. I’m not the paranoid type who thinks child molesters/falling knives are around every corner, but you gotta show more responsibility for your kids than that.

I’ve heard parents who have the balls to say they brought the kids along so they wouldn’t feel bad about leaving them alone at home. I guess leaving them alone on a casino floor, surrounded by thousands of strangers in a tourist town and hundreds of miles from home, is far better. Considering how uptight your average American parent seems to be about exposing their children to entertainment with sexual content, you’d think they’d be more reluctant to wheel their babies past people who stuff pictures of boobs in their faces every 10 feet.

People who block walkways are a major pet peeve of mine, so I’ll just acknowledge that part of the OP’s rant with a nod. Those idiots and idiot parents are the reasons I prefer to go to Vegas when school is in session, and it’s relatively dead.

One I forgot:

  1. I see your strip club flyer, Pancho. If you snap that thing in my face one more time I’m gonna set fire to it and ram it up your nostril! Did you notice that I am with my wife, who by the way has a better (natural) rack than any of the skanks in your skeevy flyers?

When Steve Wynn built the Mirage, TI, and Bellagio, he placed signs at the entrances which read, “NO STROLLERS ALLOWED ON PREMISES EXCEPT FOR HOTEL GUESTS”.

He became my hero that day.

The Station casinos have maps every few yards pointing out the “Green Zones”–areas where minors are allowed to walk (restaurants, movie theatres, bowling centers, etc.). I’m not sure how strict they are as far as enforcement goes, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.

We also have a curfew on The Strip-- unaccompanied minors are not permitted there after 10 PM; on weekends it’s 9 PM.

You want to take your kids on a vacation? Take 'em camping or to Disneyland or the beach or somewhere else! Vegas is no place for kids! Hell, we hardly have anything for the ones who live here to do!

Blame the Vegas marketing geniuses who decided selling it as a family vacation destination was a good idea.

You’ve heard of Sherrice Iverson, I take it? Her father seemed to have the assumption you noted, and was tragically proven wrong.

There’s got to be some basis for this mindset that I don’t know about, because right now, understanding of it completely eludes me. As far as I can tell, these people are going to ignore their kids no matter where the family is, so why not leave them with Gma and Gpa, or at a friend’s house, or with a babysitter? How we went from “quality time” to “I’m going to keep my kids at arm’s length 24/7 so that we both get heartily sick of each other”, I do not know. I cannot fathom. But meanwhile, the people who drag their kids every-fucking-where seem to be the same ones who want the whole world to conform to their Disney ideal. And that’s not gonna happen.

(And as long as I’m on this, what is the deal with parents who sit by their kid’s bedside for hours, and won’t leave until the tyke is sound asleep? If my parents had done that, I would have been pissed. I needed that time to myself, and I’m sure they needed their time too.)

My parents always left me with Grandma when they went to Vegas.

I think they’d be totally fun to party with them there now, but when I was 10, no. Rather stay at Grandma’s, she cooks, had cable, and my friends were down the street.

I’d never ever bring a kid to Vegas. It’s pointless. You go to Vegas to drink and gamble, eat good food and go a bit crazy. I know if I went there, I’d be drunk the whole time probably. I don’t associate “family vacation” with “Las Vegas.”

I had heard of the case, but did not hear her name. That’s awful.

I remember my first trip to Vegas. I was 12, and my cousins were 6 and 4. Why do I remember it? Because I spent at least one hour loitering in the casino’s lobby, waiting for my relatives to finish pouring money into the slot machines. I’m not one to think, “Gosh, Sherrice Iverson could have been me!!!11” but I still think it was remarkably careless that we were left alone that long. (They did check on us intermittently, but there was no reason they couldn’t have gone gambling in shifts.) I’m not under any illusions that 1989 was any better than 1997, or even 2006, for that matter.

B-b-b-but that’s almost like abandoning them! -sob-

Regarding the parking garage thing:

Your primary mistake was parking your own car in Vegas. Why on earth would you do that? Was the valet full or something? Seriously, I go to Vegas once or twice a month for work and the only time I park my own car is at our office building. At every hotel the valet is free (save for a couple bucks for tips), so I am always totally perplexed when I see people padding in from the parking garage. It just makes no sense. I mean, the valet is RIGHT THERE, whereas all the garages are always on the super far end of the property.

I’ve been going to Vegas about once a year beginning at age 10 and my friends and I always had a blast. Excalibur has a giant game room for kids and there are a lot of shows children can enjoy including the Cirque Du Soleil productions. My trips to Vegas improved when I was old enough to gamble but I always had fun regardless.

But whatever you say.

Evidently, the OP’s unaware that there are actual families living in Las Vegas. There’s no “bringing the kid to Vegas.” The kid’s been there longer than the OP.

Yes, I’m sure the families from Vegas with kids are the exact ones crowding the sidewalks on the strip.

I’ve posted my disdain for the “family destination” slant on Vegas in the IMHO thread about Vegas likes and dislikes

Pretty close. The trouble comes when you have things like movie theaters and arcades that can’t be accessed other than through the casino. Generally, the under-21 crowd (21 being the legal gambling age) are allowed to pass through the casino to get to those (or restaurants, etc.). They just cannot LINGER in the casinos.

There was a huge lawsuit some years back – a 19 year old from Arkansas hit a $1 million (or so) jackpot in one of the casinos. He wasn’t allowed to collect – not least because the family tried to claim that his mother (father?) had actually hit the jackpot. Surveillance tapes proved otherwise.

Hmm. I never use the valet for the following reasons:
[ul]
[li]I don’t trust some stranger to drive my car. I can’t imagine why anybody would. If you think they’re as careful with your car as you would be, you’re crazy.[/li][li]You have to wait (sometimes an hour at busy times) to get your car back.[/li][li]You have to tip. That $2 will get me another drink at the tables.[/li][li]A little walking never hurt anybody. Especially when I probably just ate my weight in prime rib at the buffet.[/li][/ul]

Yet another reason I don’t like anybody’s kids in the casino. I was in the arcade at Luxor, beer in hand, cussing some game. Looked daown and there’s a kid, maybe 8 years old.

There are plenty of arcades you can take your kids to, just let me have one where I can drink beer and cuss in.

If you don’t use the valet, you have to trust random idiots driving, parking, and opening doors near your car. With the valet, you at least have someone who’s likely to be sober and whose job it is to park cars around it. Plus, if the valet damages your car, they’re liable (right?), whereas random guy in parking lot might not even leave a note. I’m not sure how this balances out, but I’d guess that the valet is likely to have a lower expected cost.

I’m with you on the walking and the $2, though.

Say, silenus, you might want to drop in on this thread.

People who go to LV just for the gambling don’t understand at all what that great city is really all about!

whores