Vegas

I was asked why I never have written about Vegas.  It is true what they say, what happens in Vegas STAYS in Vegas.  Well, if you live there for two years in your early 20's like I did, then it may take you until your 30's to admit to all the stuff you did.

But how can I have a blog about being single if I don't write about the one place that single people flock to?  VEGAS BABY!!!

The idea of moving to Vegas came out of nowhere.  I was living in Wisconsin and working at my parent's restaurant.  I was renting a room from a friend of mine at his house and felt the walls closing in on me everywhere.  His girlfriend was a cross between an elementary school teacher and a Grizzly bear.  If she could have peed all over him and kept him in a nest up in a tree, she would have.  I could not look at him too long without her saying "sweetie, I have the BEST boyfriend EVER!!"  She would glare at me from across the room and smirk.  I had fantasies of tying her to the roof of my car during a hail storm and driving to Boise.

My parents, on the other hand, were great, but had different ideas of my future than I did.  I was 26 years old in the year 2000, and just did not want to be done living my life.  My father, I remember, put his arm around me while we were standing in the doorway of the dining room at their restaurant, and said "This is all yours Sarah.  I am grooming you to take over our business."  His arm swept across the room like a model on the Price is Right.  I looked around and saw an elderly couple in one corner not speaking to each other and taking bites that would not make a hamster get full.  In another corner was a swanky couple that appeared to feel they were too good for anyone in that restaurant.  Another table held a family with a child in a high chair that wanted so desperately to escape and run with a knife through the dining room.  A single man, perhaps in his fifties, sat in the corner and quietly ate by himself, staring at the wall with a blank stare.  I look back at my father and say nothing, but slip away from his grip.  There has GOT to be something better than this!!

Now, the reason Vegas came into mind is because my father LOVES Vegas.  My Dad, my brother, my grandfather, my mom, my uncle, it's almost like it is where their mother ship resides and they must return every year.  For years, my family ran the restaurant at the golf course and the day they closed for the season, they would head straight to the airport for Vegas.  This was my father's Utopia.  He had a countdown going every year for how many days till Vegas.  We would all save up our money and  head to sin city and roam the strip with no purpose in mind.  I would stay with my parents in their hotel room, sometimes they would even let me bring friends with me and get us our own hotel room.  Vegas was very comfortable to me.  Most people think of grandmas house or their aunt Ethel's house, I thought of the lights of Vegas.

"Dad"  I looked at him and put one arm on his shoulder "I am moving to Vegas."

I still remember the look on his face when I said this.  He turned one cheek to me as if to say "you wouldn't dare".  I smiled at him with a look of confidence, shielding my fears "yes, YES I AM."

The moment I said that, I left my father standing in the doorway of what could have been my future.  I was standing at this crossroads in my life and knew the safe route was staying in Delavan and living with my parents.  The road that I was unsure of had a little sign off to the side that said "Vegas, a million miles away from here."  I made it a plan and picked a date of September 9th, 2001 as the date that I would leave.

I went back to the house I shared with Joanie and Chachi, and packed up my things.  I had a garage sale and sold everything that would not fit into my pontiac sunfire.  There was nothing that was going to keep me from moving to Vegas.  I was immediately the envy of every person I encountered.  "You are moving to Vegas?  Do they have houses there?  Are you going to live in a casino?  Where are you going to live?  Do they have grocery stores there?"  The weeks prior to me leaving were very emotional.  I had no idea what the heck I was doing.  I had a place to live, I answered an ad in Craigslist of a single mom that was looking for a roommate.  She had an 8 year old son that I will call "T".  She had an empty room and was going to charge only 500.00 all bills paid.  I got a job lined up at a casino restaurant on the strip and figured that I would just make things happen when I got there.

My mother decided to drive with me.  My mom is like living with a gps.  If I didn't have her drive with me, then I would have ended up in Maine. I looked forward to her helping me with the long drive, but the day before we were supposed to leave, she fell off her horse and broke her collar bone.  The medications she was on would not allow her to drive, so I would have to do the driving on my own.  I didn't care though, I was thankful that she would be with me to keep me company. 

That drive was amazing.  Like Milford was the bonding experience I needed with my dad, this was the bonding experience I needed with my mom.  We spent the first day working on crossword puzzles.  She would read the clue and tell me how many letters, I would chain smoke and pound coffee like a drug addict.  We listened to books on cd and talked and talked and talked.  Our first night we ended up in Kansas for the evening.  We spent the night in the hotel and got up early in the morning to finish the last leg of the trip. We were going to drive through Kansas, Colorado, Utah, then off to Vegas.  (I knew if I was on my own, I would see places like West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Connecticut and go OH SHIT)  That day was the toughest drive as I was tired and did not want to be in the car anymore, but we had such a great time laughing and talking.

While in the car, one of my dad's friends from high school called me.  He had heard I was moving from Wisconsin to Las Vegas and wanted to know if I was interested in making a stop in Park City Utah to see the resort he worked at.  He was looking for a room service manager and wanted me to come and visit the lodge.  Utah?  Utah?  I was NOT going to move to Utah.  I was not Amish or Mormon or whatever the heck you had to be to live there.  What happens in Utah?  You get to sit on the sidewalk and talk to birds and make aprons out of hand spun yarn?  I was gonna live in VEGAS BABY!!!  I called him and declined,, never even considering that I would want to move to boring old Utah.  "Like that would ever happen mom."  I told her.  We drove through Salt Lake City and I cringed at the grey haze that hung in the valley.

That night, we were heading toward St. George, Utah and it was almost 11 at night.  I was exhausted and we still had a couple of hours left in our trip.  If I came rolling into Vegas now, I would have to meet my new roommate at midnight and that was just weird.  My mom and I decided to spend the night at a rinky dink hotel in St. George...it didn't matter what the place looked like, we would only be there to sleep for one night...right?

Wrong.

That morning, as I turned the tv on, we had become accustomed to watching ER in the morning.  I saw the planes hit the first tower and then changed the channel.  I did not want to watch Die Hard or whatever that was.  But it was on every channel.  No matter what I did, the same vision of these planes crashing into a tower...."Oh my God Mom, I don't think this is a tv show."  It was the morning of September 11th, 2001, and we both looked at each other in shock, not knowing what would happen next.  My mom was on the phone with my dad right away.  "Yes, you are right, we shouldn't go to Las Vegas now, we will just stay here."  I put my hands in my head, realizing that everyone's lives were going to be affected by this.

We ended up staying in that hotel for three days.  Nothing was open as everyone had closed their doors in honor of the attacks.  My mom and I were able to get some food from a gas station nearby and drank bud light and talked about what was in store for me in the next few days.  We talked to my father a lot in the next few days, deciding where we should go.  We figured if they were going to plot another attack, it was best we stayed in a stay town in Utah rather than go to one of the biggest tourist spots in the states.

Finally, after a few days of being glued to the t.v. and reliving the horrific moments of 9/11 over and over again, I called my job and checked in with them.  "Uh, we can't bring you on Sarah, we just had to get rid of people that have worked here for years.  The economy is about to take a plunge and the strip is a ghost town."  My heart fell to my stomach and I was scared to death.  "what should I do, mom?"  We decided to travel to Vegas anyway and seek out my new apartment.  It was the beginning of one of the toughest years of my life.

When I pulled into the apartment complex, "J" met me outside with her son and welcomed me very kindly.  She was a small Italian girl that was a professional dancer.  She came up to about my chest and her son was full of energy.  She showed me around the apartment.  I had my own bathroom, my own bedroom which she was kind enough to furnish with a t.v. for me and a small dresser.  My mom and I looked around the house and immediately I felt like an intruder.  A small shelf was cleared out for me in the kitchen and an even smaller space in the fridge.  I was instructed on what days were my "laundry days" and checked out my room.  Don't get me wrong, she was very kind, opening her home to a complete stranger, but I felt like she looked at me like another child.  My mom and I made some phone calls and found a discount mattress store and strapped a mattress onto the roof of my car like the beverly hillbillies with bungee cords and us hanging on for dear life.  I drove like I was driving Miss Daisy down the strip in Vegas.  A vision I never thought I would see.  We had to buy three of those foam mattress pads to make the bed even tolerable to sleep on.  It would have been cheaper to lay out some cement bricks to sleep on.  My mom, still recovering from her collarbone injury, slept for one painful and uncomfortable night on my bed and checked into a hotel the next day.

Now, if you have ever been to Vegas, you know that the foot traffic is amazing.  The amount of people walking on the strip is mesmerising.  This trip was so different than any other trip to Vegas I remembered.  There was very little traffic on the strip and the streets looked like a ghost town.  All air traffic was grounded and nobody was allowed in or out.  My mother's fear of flying was elevated and she refused (along with most of the world) to board a plane at this time.  My father, back in Wisconsin, got into his car and decided to come and get her.  I, to this day, think it was an excuse to get to Vegas.  "Would he come to get you if you were stuck in Little Rock?"  My father made the trip and came to stay with my mom in her hotel room for a few days.  I walked around in a daze, confined to my small room in "J's" apartment and tried to figure my life out.

The day my parents left, I will never forget it.  We were at Bally's, where my parents were staying, and I drove to the casino and met them by the pool.  We said very little to each other and knew that in a matter of a few hours they would be leaving their only daughter alone in a very big city.  I sat next to my mom by the pool and held her hand.  We were both trying to be strong in our goodbyes, but part of me wanted to pack up and go back with them.  The other part of me knew there was something in store for me here in Vegas...I didn't know what, but I felt like I wasn't "done" here yet.  My father walked me to the parking garage and I stood on the steps of the escalator and gave him a long strong hug.  I took my first step toward my new life and watched my father disappear from view.  I cried in my car the whole way to my apartment.

The next few days were scary and uncertain.  I tiptoed around the apartment and stayed in my room most of the time.  I slept a lot as I new very little about what I was going to do next.  These were the days before I ever had a cell phone and never even dreamed I would own a computer of my own to take to her house.  I bought a pay as you go cell phone and would drive to a gas station and add minutes from a local payphone.  I would call my mom on a daily basis and sound as optimistic as I could. "I have a ton of stuff lined up mom."  I didn't want her to worry, though I knew she could hear the fear in my voice.  I spent a lot of time in one of the local casinos.  I would take 20.00 and hang out and play for hours.  Nobody was hiring and there was still a few businesses that were closed.  One day in particular, I remember sitting in the parking lot of a Burger King looking at the "now hiring" sign in the window, wondering what to do.  "No, I am going to keep trying, I can do this."  Every motivational moment I could think of came into mind.  I had to keep trying to find something.  My money was running out and I needed to figure something out.

One day, I drove past a restaurant called Houlihans.  They had a location in Wisconsin to I went to quite a bit and always liked their food.  I walked in the front door and was greeted by a hostess.  "Can I help you?"  She said.  "Uh, yes, I was wondering if I could fill out an application."  She smiled, looked me up and down and said "sure."  She handed me an application and I sat at a nearby table.  Whenever I fill out applications at a restaurant, I look around to see how the staff looks.  Do they look happy?  Are they smiling when they are not in front of the customers.  Are they rolling their eyes and huffing in the corner when the boss walks by?  I finished the app, surprised at how it felt to write my new address as Las Vegas, Nevada, and walked back toward miss happiness.  "is your manager available to talk to?"  I said, she was shocked at my request and looked over at a man in a dress shirt floating around the dining room looking very stressed.  "Yeah, let me see if he can talk to you."  She walked over to the manager and whispered something to him, then motioned my way.  I stood up straight and smiled in his direction.  He made his way over to me and I towered over him by at least 4 inches.  "Hi, my name is Sarah, and I was wondering if you are hiring."  I stretched my hand out to him and gave him a firm handshake and looked him right in the eye.  I was going to get this job, it was going to be the break I needed.  He introduced himself and motioned toward a table in the corner.

"So, Sarah....what brings you to Vegas?"  I gave him my sch-peel and told him what happened with my job.  He looked over my experience and looked at me carefully, "It says here you are looking to be a server, but do you know how to bar tend by any chance?"  I perked up immediately as if he asked me if I know how to drink water.  "Yes, I do."  He smiled and motioned for me to follow him.  We walked into the bar where there were a few people sitting and sipping on cocktails.  A blond girl behind the bar about a size zero with a perfect body glared at me as if to show me I did not belong there.   Another girl that was serving a table nearby thrust a glass of ice against the soda dispenser to fill it with diet coke.  None of them felt I should have been there.  I was obviously not welcome.  "Ok, get behind the bar and I will call out a couple of drinks and you see how many you can make."  The manager slid onto a bar stool and I stood awkwardly at the ice station, looking at the bottles of alcohol.  I felt so comfortable behind a bar, but so very uncomfortable at this moment.  I took a deep breath as he tapped his finger on his mouth, thinking carefully.  "Gin and Tonic."  I smiled at him thinking he better come up with some more challenging drinks than this.  I made the drink as if composing a symphony and topped each with the correct garnish.  I searched for glasses as he rambled more drinks to me.  "Long Island Iced Tea, Bahama Mama, Tequila Sunrise."  Each drink that was called to me was set on the bar rail complete with a cocktail napkin.  I smiled at him, ignoring the laser beams of hatred being sent my way by the rest of the staff.  By this time, a small group of them had huddled by the entrance to the bar.  "What is she doing back there?  What is he doing?"  I could hear them whispering and found myself to be in very unfamiliar territory.  I was always the girl that everyone liked, wanted to hang out with...now I was the girl that should be looking over her shoulder when she goes to her car at night.  I puffed my chest and straightened my shoulders to show them I was confident.  What I wanted to do was grab my stuff and run out the front door and back to the convent that I had moved in to.  The manager stood up and extended his hand to me again, "you start tomorrow at 10."  I did all I could not to jump up and hug him.  I would deal with the hatred gang and their death glares later.  I didn't care, I had a job.  "This is Michelle" the manager said to me, she is the bar manager.  The size 0 girl walked over to me and put her hands on her hips and looked at me with not even a hint of a smile.  "Hi, nice to meet you."  I walked out from behind the bar and headed out the front door.


Vegas was so different from what I was used to.  The people here were neither accommodating nor warm and fuzzy.  Such a change from what you would expect from a town that thrived on being service oriented.


The first night of work I walked in the front door dreading what was in store for me.  I saw Michelle behind the bar, hands on her hips again.  Her shirt tied in a knot in the back and her tiny hip bones jutting out of her skin.  I assumed I looked double her size.  I watched her control the bar like a captain of a ship.  Glasses were pounded on the bar, ice thrust into the glasses with force, her fingers pounded on the computer screen like she had created the system on her own.  When she needed a new bottle of liquor, she would climb onto the bar, enjoying every moment of attention from the patrons at the bar.  They all knew her by name and she was the queen of that ship.  I decided to treat her with respect and let her know I would not battle for control of her domain, instead I would do all I could to feed her ego and befriend her.


I walked up to one of the servers and introduced myself.  She said her name was Amy and that she had been working there for 7 months.  She took very little interest in me and made sure I felt as if I was in her way.  I set my purse down and walked behind the bar.  "uh, servers aren't allowed behind the bar."  She said with the warmth of a snow cone.  "I am not a server, I am a bartender."  I said with a little bit more sass than I wished I would have.  She stopped quickly, drinks in hand and glared at me "really.!!!"  She moved past me and set the drinks on the table nearby.  I looked over to the entrance to the kitchen and saw the manager that hired me.  "Alan, hi, nice to see you again."  I said as I shook his hand.  "Sarah, nice to see you too, let me walk you around and introduce you to the staff."  What he should have said is, "let me show you the people that are going to hate you over the next few days."


Two servers were huddled in the corner by the computer terminal entering an order "Alan, I need a void on this."  She looked over at me and immediately looked me up and down.  I was not sure what the significance of this was.  Was there something on my pant leg or something about my shoes that told them what type of person I was?  Usually it is them trying to figure out if I was really that tall as I usually tower at least five inches above most girls I meet.  Are they trying to figure out if I have heels on?  Nope, I am really this tall chica.


"Kristine, this is Sarah.  She is going to be working in the bar."  "The bar?"  My smile took on a frozen state as she spun on her heels and left us standing in her dust.  "Sarah, this is Matt and this is Krissy."  I smiled at Matt in my warmest midwestern smile and waved at Krissy.  "Hey."  Is all they said.  Ugh, this is going to be tougher than I thought.  I followed Alan into the bar and stepped into my spot for the night.  "You are going to do the service bar tonight.  Michelle can help you if you need anything.  Here is the drink menu, and here is your apron.  I looked over at Michelle who was on the bar reaching for a bottle of vodka.  Her six pack stomach made me want to take her out for a steak and a dairy queen blizzard.  I immediately felt invisible.  It was horrible.  The guys at the bar did not even see there were two bartenders..I was merely the girl that made the drinks for the staff.  The printer spit out it's first drink ticket and I went to work on making the drinks.  I stuck the ticket to the side of the drink and tried to ignore the glares from the staff waiting on their drinks.  "She is kind of slow.  Why is she putting that drink in that glass?  Who does she think she is?"  I felt like saying "I can hear you guys." but opted to act like I heard nothing.  I let my mind go back to my days of bar tending in college and how I was the "Michelle" of the bar. Give them a chance..I could hear my father say.  They will love you in a matter of days.


Not further from the truth Daddio.


Over the next few shifts it was as if they had all decided it their main purpose in life to make me look as horrible as possible.  They would put the wrong drink orders in, then tell the manager I screwed it up.  They would spill drinks and put in double orders so that I looked like I was incapable of reading the ticket.  Each mistake I made they would run to Alan and say "Sarah screwed up."  I quickly realized that he knew I was not an idiot and that they were just jealous of me.  One day, he pulled me aside and told me that Matt and Krissy were both hoping for a bar tending position, but neither of them knew how to make a drink.  He confided in me that day that he knew I was able to do the job and to just ignore them.  Michelle also began to warm up to me as well.  She would help me if she could tell I was stumbling on a specialty drink and even let me wander into her "man domain" when she was too busy to help someone out.  One night at the end of the evening, I heard all the servers talking about how they were going out at the end of the night.  They said it loud enough in front of me so as to prove that I was not invited and that they were going to have a blast.  I laughed to myself and watched the whoo hoo girls head out the front door at the end of their shift.  Strangely enough, I did not desire their friendship nor their approval.  I was making money and had a job that was all I cared about.


One evening, as we were cleaning up the bar, Michelle came up to me and said "so what are you doing after work?"  I looked over at Matt, Krissy and Kristine all laughing as they pulled their coats on.  Michelle was counting money at the end of the bar as I wiped down the wells.  "I don't know, probably just home."  She came over to me and handed me a stack of money.  "Cause we just made three hundred dollars a piece, you want to go out for a drink?"  I dropped my jaw in amazement.  "Seriously?"  I don't know if I was more impressed by how much we made or by the fact that she asked me to hang out with her.  "Do you go out with Krissy and them?"  I said, she looked at me and scoffed, "are you kidding me?  Hell NO!! Those girls are bitches." We headed out to a bar away from the ghetto gang and talked and talked.


Now, the thing about Vegas you need to realize, is that it is nothing like you see on the strip.  We don't head down to Las Vegas blvd and hang out at Harrah's and sit by the fountains at the Bellagio with a giant six foot glass of some red frozen concoction.  We head to little hole in the wall bars off the beaten path and belly up to the bar.  The room is filled with people from the service industry, pens still in their shirt pockets, wads of money on the bar.  Nobody speaks to each other as you are so busy stuffing money into the machines on the bar.  The air is filled with smoke and every once in a while you hear a pop from a clap and "oh shit, so effing close!!"  Your life is filled with idle chat and "check this out, if this would have been a five I would have just won a grand."  Vegas is the land of almosts and so close.  It is more intoxicating than the drinks and before you know it, the sun is coming up and you are so drunk you can't walk.  I will not lie, there are a lot of times I should not have driven home, but there are a lot of nights where I did.  Michelle became my new partner in crime.  She said very little to me at work, but the minute the doors were locked at the restaurant, we were best buds.  I lived a life of complete extremism. I drank every night, smoked like crazy and lived like a true bartender.


My life with "J" and her son came to an end about 9 months after I moved to Vegas.  She had started to voice her opinion on my lifestyle.  I would sleep till 4, go to work at 5, go out after work than come home at 5am.  I cannot imagine that I was much of an ideal roommate since she had a son.  Now that I have my own child, I would have been quite unhappy with that situation as well.  It was right around that time that Michelle (who ironically was dating Alan the manager) asked me to move into her home.  I was so anxious to get out of "J's" house that I jumped at the chance.  I don't remember much about living with them except that she walked around naked and they had white carpeting.  At Christmastime, they had a 15 foot purple Christmas tree.  The song "Purple rain" played over and over in my head for months after that.


I lived with Michelle and Alan for a few months until I saved enough money to get my own place.  Once I found my own house it was like I had reached freedom.  I bought all new furniture and continued to work at Houlihans as a server and bartender.  The grumpy bunch had finally started to soften their attacks at me as they knew I was friends with Alan and Michelle.  I worked all the time.  After a lunch shift I would be walking out the door and Alan would come my way "just had a party of twenty make a reservation for 7pm.  I need my rockstar to take the table."  He filled my ego enough and I stayed, filling my pockets with more cash than I could have imagined for 26.


I dated some guys while I lived there.  I had a favorite place named the Chicago Brew pub that I liked to frequent.  One night I was donating my month's salary to the bar and this guy next to me started talking to me.  Before I knew it, we were in a full on conversation at 5am.  The bars in Vegas are very smart for not putting clocks or windows in the bars.  By sunrise, I looked at him through slanted drunken eyes and he invited me to his apartment.  His name was Steven and he was kind of a douche bag.  Every guy you meet in Vegas is some sort of entertainer.  Dancer, Singer, extraordinaire....it is very typical.  You can meet the guy one night and know for sure you will never see him again.  I stayed with him that night and tiptoed out of his place at noon.  I purposefully did not leave him my number in hopes of never seeing him again.


Yeah, proud moment number 112.


Out of all the crazy memories I have of Vegas, I think of how scared I was that day on the escalator as my father said goodbye to me.  I know now, that I needed to experience every moment I experienced in the two years I was there.  There is nothing that I would change about my life there.  I believe it when they say "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas."  There is so much that I did not write about in this blog.  Perhaps there will be a Vegas II blog.  What I do know is that I am the person I am today because I stood up to those people in the bar.  Because I did not let them get to me and showed them that I could have cared less about what they thought of me, it made me stronger.  There are moments that I will never speak of that happened in Vegas.  Things that I did that I will never mention to anyone, but will hold in my heart as defining moments of my life.


Everyone should have a Vegas moment in their life.  That moment where they step out their comfort zone and get behind the bar and become that person that everyone is talking about.  I know that stepping onto that escalator that day was the scariest moment of my life, leaving my family behind to begin a part of what I know now as a big part of who I am today.  Whether it be moving to Vegas,  or ending your marriage, I believe you need to show yourself that you can be strong enough to overcome what may scare the hell out of you.


If I had it to do over again, I would do it the same way again...no questions asked.