Viva Las Vegas

I exited my plane in Las Vegas on Sunday night and prepared for a 3-hour layover before my connection to Albuquerque arrived. (which actually turned into a six and a half hour nightmare, ending in me arriving home at 3:00am and then having to go to work at 7:30 the very same morning) I was returning from my weekend in Spokane for my sister-in-law’s graduation. I had 3 hours to kill and I was in Vegas. Ok so maybe just the airport but it was still Vegas. I left the jet-way, went to the bathroom, and promptly lost 30 bucks in one of the airports many slot machines. I believe this one was a wheel of fortune themed slot; anyway, it wasn’t very fortunate. After my initial loss and disappointment I decided to go and find something to fill my tummy.
Airports are funny; no matter where you are it always seems like the same, people, whether you are in Kansas or Poughkeepsie. The biggest group one finds at the airport is families heading out to Disney World, or Hawaii or wherever. Next up are your businessmen, always rushed, always with a coffee stain on their crisp white shirt and always talking about their connections. (“I got a puddle jumper comin' out of LAX heading straight for ABQ and from there I catch the red-eye out to BUF…”)
Next you have your college freshmen and sophomores heading home for spring break because mommy wont let them go to Cancun, and last but not least you have your random travelers, people like I was last weekend, heading out to Abrahams bar-mitzvah, or out to visit an ailing mother, or, in my case, visiting their family for a graduation etcetera.
But as I looked around the Las Vegas Airport, It was different, it was … a little off. In the Las Vegas airport you have a plethora of still drunk sorority girls and drug addled frat boys passed out on the seats, the floor, and frankly anywhere else they could find a spot to rest what was left of their over stimulated brains, 45 year old Muscle bound meatheads with more bedazzles on there shirts and pants than their highly plastic “I 50 but don’t I look like I’m 25?” girlfriends, showgirls just off a shift working their second job a Sbarro, and a full wedding party for a couple of 19 year olds that will no doubt be divorced in 3 months. All this on top of your vacationing families, businessmen, and other random travelers, all in all it makes for some good people watching, people trying to get that last little bit of the Vegas lifestyle before they have to go back to their real jobs as accountants and plumbers.
I kind-of like that Vegas exists. Its comforting in some weird way to know that if I go completely mental and decide to dress up and act like Elvis, or better yet Marilyn Monroe everyday for the rest of my life, Ill have some place to go. A place where I can be as strange as I want because I guarantee that just down the street in front of the Palms there is someone much more peculiar and more twisted than I. So Viva Las Vegas, but just remember, not everything that happens there will stay there. Except your money, that will definitely stay there