Vegas shows are always a blast save for the occasional audience members who puke on themselves. One time a woman in the second row was getting wasted and out of nowhere she puked in her hand, but that did not let this stop her from living her best life. Instead of leaving to clean herself off or avoid ridicule from strangers, she gently placed the puke on the floor next to her as delicately as you’d put your drink by your feet at a movie theater. She was hands down the coolest hot mess I’ve ever seen.
I’d say that at least every other show in Vegas there’s a kid in the audience whose poker-addicted parent left for me to babysit. It usually takes me a couple of minutes to notice these kids, and I always manage to see them after I’ve talked graphically about anatomy they shouldn’t learn about for at least ten more years. When I ask what they’re doing there, they usually tell me their parents dropped them off because they had to “run an errand.” Look, I don’t know what it’s like to be a parent or a gambling addict—well, not literal gambling; I’m more of an emotional gambling addict—but I can’t begin to understand how hard it is to manage an obsession with craps while simultaneously trying to raise a kid, even though the first couple years of parenting is mostly dealing with literal craps.
I won’t leave my dogs tied to a pole while I go into Starbucks, much less leave a child alone with a comedian for an hour. I’m just saying, if you’re a poker-addicted parent, I’m not sure watching me talk about my humiliating sexual experiences is going to do less damage to a child than letting him watch you gamble away his college tuition.
I had one particularly rough night in Vegas. And let me preface this story with something about me: I don’t do great with groups of big men. I love men dearly and have made many of them the center of my universe. That said, there’s nothing scarier to me than a group of men who go to the gym a lot, wear tight shirts, and are out enjoying a “boy’s night” fueled by vodka, Red Bull, and cologne from Walgreens.
One night after a show, I had carefully done my evening anti-insomnia ritual: stretched, meditated, put the yummy-smelling oil on my face that triggers my Pavlovian reaction to know it’s time for bed. I creatively covered all the tiny blue and red lights on various electronics in the room because any suggestion of light keeps my brain awake. I didn’t check my phone because going on Instagram before bed is like throwing a Molotov cocktail at my self-esteem, and I’ll end up spending the whole night trying to figure out what parties I wasn’t invited to. Finally at a point in my life where I was able to make sane choices before bed, I read some of a book and lay down. All signs pointed to a deep, juicy slumber and I was very much looking forward to not being a raging, exhausted bitch the next day. I closed my eyes, and after a couple breaths, felt a warm blooming in the pit of my stomach.
Our bodies have this amazing ability to react to something before we can even see or hear it. I’m sure this hypersensitivity served my ancestors very well when they were sleeping under rocks amongst lions and bears sans weapons, but there were no dangerous animals around my hotel room. What I was hearing wasn’t the roar of a lion. It was the music of a Pitbull, and unfortunately it was Pitbull the human, not the dog.
FIREBALL! Do-do-do-dooo-doo-doop!
I peeked out my door to see what kind of hoedown I was up against and lo and behold, it was seven very muscly guys in those permanently ironed shirts, the ones that always look sort of wet for no reason. They paired their iridescent shirts with those jeans that have the stitching down the side as if to say, “I like to listen to house music, but I also want to look like a cross between a farmer and the guy from Creed.” I don’t know why they all decided to wear matching pants. Maybe there was a sale on them: “Buy six, get one free if you come with your CrossFit buddies?” Whatever was happening, it was a deeply tribal situation. When more than three people are in one place, wearing the same clothes, my reptilian brain deduces “It’s me against them.” And it was.
These monsters weren’t even in their room. At one A.M. they were partying in the hallway with their door open, which I found shockingly rude, even for how low my bar is for people’s manners in Las Vegas. They stood around a room-service table full of flavored vodkas, yelling and sort of punching each other between texting and taking pictures of themselves. As I walked toward them I saw that they all had that luminous helmet hair that can only be sculpted with the perfect mix of pomade, gel, and delusion.
Why not just turn the other way, Whitney? Why not just stay in your lane and let people have fun, you uptight meanie? Well, the only thing I want less than to confront seven agro psychos is to get no sleep, because then I become the agro psycho.
Since I spend so much time in hotels, I’ve mastered the art of telling people to shut up in a polite way that kind of makes shutting up their idea. For example: “Hey, just curious how long y’all are planning on being up?” subtly shames them into being quiet. When that doesn’t go well, I ask something more vague and rhetorical like “Hey, guys, are you serious right now?” If you ask that question sincerely enough, it becomes a Rorschach test and people project their own anger and baggage about other stuff from their past. You become their disapproving high school coach, their drunk father, their ex-wife, whoever. And I don’t care what or who you project onto me as long as it makes you stop blasting techno.
In this case I had a feeling that my sneaky reverse psychology mind games weren’t going to work on this crew, but I walked up to them anyway, hoping to have a reasonable exchange. I promise you I had all the best intentions, but once I got within five feet of these dudes, they started to look me up and down in such a lecherous way that I couldn’t possibly operate from a place of respect. The ogling probably just made me insecure and defensive, since I was in the least flattering pair of harem pajama pants I own, but instead of my usual gentle reverse psychology, I was slightly more direct.
“Hey, guys, it’s one A.M. Do you mind taking the party into your room?”
“Why don’t you mind your own fuckin’ business?” the shortest one of the bunch quipped back.