You Vomit in Vegas, It Stays in Vegas

You vomit in Vegas, it stays in Vegas. Except when you make a public proclamation on the Sunday morning shuttle to the airport. That was when a bleary voice behind me moaned, “I never puked in so many public places!”

Folks, we are now leaving Las Vegas. I’d arrived that Friday to attend a conference and see a few sights, my first visit in 18 years.

It was a hot Friday afternoon. The sidewalks of Sin City surged with humans. Families, couples, frat boys, working girls, book clubs, bus tours and even a few Fundamentalists gathered. They screeched, giggled, jiggled, slurped and preached their way up and down the strip. Huge puffy clouds full of promised rain glided above casinos, desert scrub and endless packs of people.

In a city famous for its excess and its very own Rat Pack, I was neither excessive nor part of anyone’s pack. I was alone.

But Not Lonely, Dammit!

Here in the City of Illusion to observe and ponder, while attending a Blog Conference, (a lot of self-indulgence), I wondered where I fit into the need we humans have to join.

I read somewhere once that Louis Leakey believed after humans evolved physically to survive, our minds adapted to survive as social creatures. We have this drive to affiliate and become part of a social organization. Gathering in groups started somewhere. Why?

Walk Like an Egyptian

Current anthropological theory (sounds kind of smarty pants, but hear me out) is that great civilizations and complex social organizations – like the Egyptians or the Incas – first arose out of need. If people banded together to divert water for crops or to hunt or to protect the kids, well, everyone was better off.

Once the practicalities of getting the group to build a better community was set, all sorts of rules about how people should act were thrown into the mix. We call them societal expectations -- like people shouldn’t go to Las Vegas alone.

Which is where I come in.

Hey, Lady, You Okay?

So I’m waiting for the Las Vegas Blvd. strip shuttle to show up and take me back to my hotel. Not once, but twice, concerned citizens, also waiting for the shuttle, look at me, standing there all alone (but not lonely, dammit!) and ask if I’m waiting for the South Point (shameless plug) shuttle. I answer, but wonder what’s going on. Why the concern in a town without a heart?

And then, while inside the Beatles Cirque de Soleil show (I should get a kick-back here), a pleasant middle-aged man with his wife is careful to make sure I’m comfortable in my seat and tries to draw me into his group’s conversation.

What am I? Slack-jawed and drooling? Don’t answer that.

And it doesn’t end there. While waiting for the volcano to erupt outside the Mirage  (C’mon, someone send me a check!), a nice man with a New Zealand accent steps aside m’lady style to allow me space on the sidewalk and says, “Can you see?”

From start to finish, members of the community inquired after my well being. Before I arrived, friends wondered who’d I’d go with? Is it a big party? No one and no, were my answers. I’m going alone, but I won’t be lonely, dammit!

That’s Just Weird

I was like a dog at a cat show, a nun at a strip club, Donny and Marie at an Obama convention. I just didn’t fit into our expectation of a trip to LV, but that poor bastard who puked all over town is quintessentially Las Vegas. Hail, Caesar, King Tut, and Captain Morgan.