Cole’S Law Blog

I’m waiting to place an order. Largely ignored, I put my elbows on the counter to look anxious. I haven’t had much to drink today. There’s a girl at the other end of the counter who looks like she’s been waiting awhile. She’s blonde and she appears to be alone, tight jeans and a black sweater. I try to stare while not looking like a suspect.[1] The guy on the other side of the counter goes over to take her order.

“I’m sorry ma’m, but we don’t seem to have your Yaz in yet. Could you come back tomorrow?” asks the man.

I’m at the pharmacy waiting for my prescription to come through. There’s a hospital bracelet on my wrist where I was discharged about an hour earlier. Just four days ago a similar looking bracelet adorned my wrist and admitted me into a much happier place; a place where girls dangle on tension wires and the cheapest drink is a $9 Bud Light; a place where anything is possible if you have enough cash, cars, and Quaaludes. But now, as I wait in line for my own prescription, all I can think about is how much my ass hurts.

The pharmacist is calling up the distributor for her.

“Yes, I need more Yaz,” I hear him say. The girl sort of recoils as the volume is a tone higher than you would want your pharmacist to use when refilling your birth control prescription.[2] At least we know she’s up for it.

As much as I’d like to pursue this issue further, I quickly remember my own disposition. I recall that if it magically does come down to shirts and skins at least one of us will be wearing disposable underwear. It’s not her…my butt hurts.

Round 1: One Week Earlier

I was wide awake for the first Friday morning in recent memory. Already I’d forked over $200 for the day’s games, checked my bracket, ordered a Denver omelette, and finished my fifth cup of coffee. After placing our bets, we walk through the casino floor en route to the cab stand. A man is gently escorted out of the Heart Bar by several large security guards, his grey Wisconsin Badgers shirt slung over his head like it’s the end of Children of Men. No one looks twice. The grandmas turn back to video poker and the cocktail waitresses continue to serve free drinks. It’s 8 a.m. on a Friday morning in Las Vegas.

It’s hard not to laugh at something like that while also imagining a black car on a single-lane highway, a hungover Wiconsinite in the trunk, lots of duct tape, some vultures, and a cozy hole in the desert. Whatever, it’s March Madness and there are better things to do.

Although many would call it a waste I maintain that there’s nothing wrong with spending an entire day inside a smoke-filled, movie theater getting free drinks while watching other people be active. It’s 6 p.m. and we’ve been sitting in the same lounge chairs since breakfast ended. Sprawled out in front of us are at least 30 HD screens showing four games.

Three others have joined me on this gambling odyssey including JewJo, Jammy, and my cousin Monkey. I excuse myself to the bathroom for the first time in twelve hours. The urinals are equipped with splashguards and cigarette holders for those who don’t want to put out their cigarette and reach for another one just because they have to take a piss, the fact that thousands of other people who haven’t washed their hands all day have used this is small beans compared with having to reach into your pocket for another.

The cab line is at least thirty people deep. JewJo[3] looks pissed. He needs to get back to the poker room.

“Fuck man, this line’s gonna take forever,” he sighs.

“No it won’t,” says Jammy.[4]

“There’s at least 15 cabs in front of us,” JewJo retorts.

“There’s definitely not more than 11,” Jammy responds.

A sudden smirk slaps itself across JewJo’s face. I know what’s coming.

“Wanna bet?”

It’s sidebet time.

Sidebets are the wagers made between friends that can range anywhere from sports betting to more personal agendas. I lost my sidebet to Jammy yesterday, saying that JewJo’s’ first word upon entering our room would be either, a.) Yo., b.) Up, c.) Big,[5] d.) Yao[6]. Jammy took the field. JewJo’s first words were “My amigos” and I lost three bucks.

There are exactly eleven cabs ahead of us and JewJo hands Jammy a five dollar bill in complete disgust.

Returning to the hotel I’m down 300 for the day. I’m one drink and a hundred dollars away from accepting someone’s indecent proposal. With not one to be found I settle for a daiquiri. Actually make that two daiquiris…sorry…three daiquiris in preparation for a Cirque de Soleil show.

Four daiquiris later and I’m in the lobby of another hotel. Monkey, who I believe has matched me daiquiri for daiquiri, is singing Andrea Boccelli in the lobby at a very high decibel level. Once inside the theater, a performer/usher wearing eyeliner and dressed in a cape tells us to keep it down. Apparently someone in the row behind us didn’t like my cousin’s Amistad joke.[7]

“Take me to your emperor!” Monkey demands, “There’s an urgent matter I must discuss with him.”

Miraculously we don’t get thrown out of the theater. None of us have a good memory of the show due to either a daiquiri induced sleep or a daiquiri induced drunken haze. Looking back, the three things I recall are flaming bows and arrows, a man in a turtle costume, and a shitload of backflips.

A man dressed as a ninja pulls another ninja towards him with a rope.

“Get over here!” roars Monkey.

“Finish him!” he continues.

“Fatality, Scorpion wins.”

Pursuing an Eiffel Tower

I’m up at 7 a.m. for the third morning in a row. There’s a morning ritual to be maintained and Jammy and I leave the other two in their beds sucking their thumbs. By “their beds” I am really referring to “our beds” as the four of us are sharing two queens. When you’re 24 and jobless sleeping with another man is a risk you have to take. One person sleeps over the sheets and the other sleeps underneath to prevent any awkward breakfasts. This rarely happens. Almost no one goes to breakfast.

The recovery on Saturday morning involves three slices of breakfast pizza, two eggs benedicts, and our daily stop at the sportsbook. Since the games begin at 9, by the time I’m done stuffing my face, it’s time to start a new day of sitting on my ass and doing absolutely nothing. I’ve been doing a lot of sitting lately and I’ve noticed a strange twinge has emerged in my lower back. I shrug it off as the small price of being a lazy bastard and resume watching the Utah v. Arizona game. There’s a group of rowdy Arizona students on spring break sitting next to us.

Arizona’s Chase Budinger throws a successful alley-oop. They’re up by double-digits.

“Yeah!” says one of them.

“Yeah bitch! That’s what I’m talking about! Where you at Utah?! Where you at Utah?!”

“Obviously not in a sportsbook,” I say to Jammy.

Cousin Monkey meets up with us and we resume watching the games. JewJo is in the poker room at the Bellagio. Besides the waitresses scrounging for tips, the sportsbook is a Polish, Italian, and German sausage convention. This isn’t surprising.

March Madness is the ultimate male weekend in Vegas. When I boarded the flight I counted a total of 20 women on a plane of 110 passengers. It’s not that there’s a dearth of women though. In fact there are plenty here in Vegas. Just not in the sportsbook. After realizing that we’ve been sitting in hot dog heaven for ten hours, we amend to a change of venue.

When I was in Copenhagen, they said that walking around the main part of the city for an hour was the equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes. Putting that figure in Vegas terms, I’ve probably smoked the equivalent of four packs in the past two days. I’ve had a cough since Thursday afternoon and my fingers keep reaching for something that isn’t there. Monkey, a habitually trained smoker, has had three cigarettes in the past two days and can’t figure out why he still has a full pack.

The three of us take a timeout from the games and head over to the Bellagio.I pick up another daiquiri on the way to our destination. The container is a yard-long, plastic beaker that holds 96 ounces of liquid courage. (other daiquiri containers include the electric guitar and the Eiffel Tower).[1]

Call Me Israel

By the third day of our trip I’m down about 600 bucks, excluding expenses. As with any unfamiliar city you have to get your ass kicked a few times before you figure it out. In Vegas this takes several trips.

For instance, when someone tells you that they’re staying two hotels down it can easily translate into a ten minute walk. This makes cabs a viable alternative, which if you’re from any urban area on the east coast, you’ve been instinctively programmed to avoid. The cab drivers are awesome here, engaging, talkative, informative, and some of them can get you sweet deals on strip clubs and other shit for no additional charge (I assume).

Our cab driver’s name is Israel. I’m not sure he knows that he is currently transporting four people from his namesake.

“If you guys want here is my card, I can get you good deal on a strip club. Free drinks.” JewJo takes the card. “Good deal, good girls,” he insists.

“I’m not really interested in any honey, but you’re saying that there will be milk?” I ask.

The other three Jews in the car crack up. Despite his name, I’m not sure that Israel’s a regular at the Vegas JCC.

We slowly amble out of the cab and into our tenth casino since Thursday, meeting an old school friend who just moved out here as an engineer. We give Monkey a ride to the airport and somehow end up at a nightclub. Standing outside the velvet rope, we see a guy approach a bouncer and point to his gigantic jewel-encrusted wristwatch.  He doesn’t even have to say anything. The bouncer parts the red rope and the dude walks in with the rest of his crew.

We’re worried that they won’t let us in. JewJo looks and is dressed exactly like a twelve-year old tennis player. Fearing rejection, I take off my jacket and hand it to him, not caring that he’s got a frame three inches and sixty pounds lighter than my own. He puts it on and looks like fucking David Byrne.

After they admit all the hot people for free, they let the normals inside for just $30. All four of us have to pay $30. We look like the Beastie Boys, only gawkier and more Jewish. How’s that for a fucking crew?!

March Madness is not a valid insanity plea

I’ve done spring break, Oktoberfest, and Mardi Gras but what now transpires is indulgence and excess at an unprecedented level. Two weeks later, I can still barely comprehend the whole thing.

We enter a club that could easily double for a great rap video; girls dancing, strobe lights, songs with Autotune, and faint cues that would lead one to suspect the bathrooms aren’t just for applying eyeliner and taking a shit.

Ten minutes at the bar and I have a $9 Bud Light that’s half-finished by the time I find the rest of the group. They don’t acknowledge me and I can’t blame them when I see what they’re looking at: two girls in skintight dresses dancing up on each other while dangling from tension wires. These are not strippers, these are not dancers, these are regular patrons.

That isn’t even the crazy part about the ordeal. What’s absolutely mind-blowing is how everybody else in the club seems to be taking it; that it’s commonplace and completely normal for gorgeous women, who aren’t even being paid, to dance on poles, girders, and makeshift monkey bars for five blissful hours.

We don’t talk for about five minutes and I think JewJo says “Oh my G-d” about a hundred times. In terms of communication with the opposite sex, we all good-naturedly agree that it’s a futile endeavor. Talking to one of these girls would be as much of an otiose exercise as a unic reading the Kama Sutra.

Finally managing to move past guttural fragments and into coherent sentences, we all agree to move to the west coast (or at least I’m in).

Not wanting to leave…

“Unless a girl’s dancing on tension wires, I’m never getting an erection ever again,” says JewJo.

We’re still in a stupor from last night. We’ve seen things that have altered our perceptions about what is possible. We can never go back to the way things used to be. We’ve been to the top of the mountain.[1] After taking in the view, now begins our climb back down.

This is not to say last night was a total bust. What has hopefully come out of all this is a newly instilled sense of false self-confidence that will transcend to our adventures on the east coast with average girls who have similar delusions of grandeur. The four of us stood toe-to-fake-tits with the best that Vegas had to offer. We realized that although we weren’t the best, we could still stand with the best for a $30 entry fee.

We recap last night at an empty Jack-in-the-Box over 99 cent tacos and Mr. Pibb.

“As great as it was, I’m burnt out. Four days in Vegas is enough,” says Jammy.

As much as I want to tell him he’s an idiot and has no idea what the fuck he’s talking about, that he’s made $10 bets on games the entire weekend and finished plus $17 and violated the code of go big or go home, I have to agree with him. Today, I am ready to go home. Vegas has kicked my ass once again. I’m down about $800 for the week and it’s getting increasingly harder to sit. I’m ready for my red eye flight home and bad movie that comes with it. Plus, I have International Law about three hours after we land.

Maybe you should sit down for this

There is no greater disparity than the looks on the faces of the new arrivals and departures at McCarran International Airport. The people coming are happy and have the smirk that they’re going to take it down and have the best time ever. Then there are those leaving, who, although they’ve had the best time ever, have the thousand yard stare affixed to their faces, zombies ready to get the fuck out of here and in some cases flee the scene of the crime.

Everyone in our terminal looks guilty, like they’ve done something they shouldn’t have done.  Whether it involved someone with an “I” at the end of her first and only name I cannot say for sure. 12% of people have seen something inserted into somebody, 37% of people have inserted something into them. Regardless of which contingent demographic you fall into, I’m tolerant enough to sit next to you on the plane.

The only problem is that I’m standing now. Sitting has become virtually unbearable. The pain is excruciating in my aisle seat and I grimace through the entirety of Quantum of Solace, struggling to fall asleep.  Two cross-country flights, 12 hour days watching games, and averaging probably 15 hours a day sitting through law school, television, and other assorted lethargic activities has taken its toll.

A cyst to turn over

Three days later I’m at the hospital. I have a cyst and the doctor says she has to remove an abcess that has formed where my back meets my ass. There’s a large needle involved and it easily clinches the top spot of the three most excruciating experiences I’ve ever had, neatly nestled in between my future first wife and planar fasciitis. Despite all the pain that came from the weekend, I’d still adamantly say it was a good time. Aside from the minor ass surgery, I wouldn’t change a thing.

I hope that I’ve offered a good guide to March Madness in Vegas for future partakers. Although I literally got my ass handed to me, I know that I will be coming back for seconds. Then again, it’s probably best not to listen to someone wearing disposable underwear.

I’ve taken it all sitting down and now it’s time to do something different; to truly change my stance. I’m going to lie down. It’s time to sleep.

Taxi Driver

To conclude, I will now leave you in the hands of our very capable cab driver Mr. Ronald Bennett:

So there’s little Johnny, eight years old, and loves his parents. One day he has a nightmare and as he often does, opens his parents’ door where he finds his father and mother; the old man giving it to her from behind. The kid is aghast, speechless. His father and him lock eyes. Still banging away, his father begins to laugh hysterically.

“Close the door and go to your room. I’ll be in to talk to you in a few.”

The father finishes up and goes down to his son’s room. He knocks on the door. There’s no answer, just a strange, creaking sound.

“Johnny?”

The father opens the door to find little Johnny and own mother; Johnny giving it to his grandmother from behind.

The father doesn’t know what to say. The room smells like White Diamonds and Buick LeSabre. The father’s eyes begin to water as Johnny continues uninterrupted.

“Johnny! What the fuck are you doing!?”

Johnny turns to face the old man.

“Not so fucking funny when it’s your mother, is it?” Johnny replies.