20 Questions for Vegas

October 14, 2015.Reading time 4 minutes.

My wife and I spent the weekend in Vegas, BABY!

It’s not what you think. We aren’t really the Vegas type. There was a charity event we were invited to attend and it was filled with lovely people doing amazing work. That part of our trip was truly a beautiful experience.

Our First Red Carpet... ever! — Our First Red Carpet… ever!

Other parts were more alarming to my sense of dignity. In fact, I wondered how the people we met at the event reconciled their existence in Las Vegas with the rest of what I saw until I was told that the average citizen never goes down to the strip unless they work there. It may be the reason for the city, but it is also the reason residents avoid the city.

Despite all of its perverse charm, the people watching in Las Vegas is exquisite. So many questions churn in the mind as you take in the experience. In no particular order, I present my top 20 questions:

Dear old man, what is the allure of playing slots alone the entire hour my wife and I are eating lunch?
What must I do to get my bathrobe put in a rotating display case in a casino?
To the kid with the cardboard sign, Help Me Buy Weed – do you think we all didn’t see that on the internet and if you have a connection, why do you need my change?
Who shops at Victoria’s Secret… in the airport?
Vegas fashion
Can you make one retail store without slot machines?
To the parents playing blackjack while their two children slept in strollers… Really?
How can I pay a cabby when all of your ATM’s only dispense $100 bills?
How many regrets come out of the tattoo parlor in the hotel/casino lobby?
If you could harness the collective ego of the young men strutting down the strip, could you power the entire city?
Young ladies, are the hotel lobbies really the suitable place for you to audition to be showgirls?
They make the women tall in Vegas
How many psychologists specializing in ways to pull money out of my pocket are employed by the city?
What happened to the cheap food and free buffets?
Did the drunk buying diamonds for his wife, girlfriend, or current table partner at the jewelry store in the casino lobby really think his purchase through?
Is the richest guy in Vegas a casino owner or a plastic surgeon?
I never thought I’d be able to cross “selfie with a lady wearing a kiddie pool” off my bucket list.
How were normal-looking, middle aged people still living the night before when we were checking out to catch our red-eye flight home?
Is an ill-fitted, expensive dress really fashion or is it just another in a long list of poor choices?
If you need that many security guards, are you running a casino or a debtors prison?
Is a Vegas hotel lobby at 5 am the closest thing to a zombie apocalypse?
When do they clean anything in a casino?
Did I just pass Elvis at the Bellagio fountains?

If you’ve had the pleasure of experiencing Vegas, did you have any questions I left out?

Hospital 101 for the Incurably Immature

April 29, 2014.Reading time 3 minutes.

My girls have grown accustomed to it, but their friends constantly remark on my maturity level, which isn’t high. My personal favorite was a comment from a friend of the eldest, who said, “Your dad is like, 7!” Very true. So with all of the time we are spending at the hospital now, I have developed a list of things my childish mind WANTS to do.

1. Every day we walk past a sleep study area to get to our room. I yearn to yell, beat on the walls, and bang pots and pans to wake everyone up.

2. My daughter has a bright-red diode sometimes hooked to her finger that measures her blood oxygen level. I am literally dying to turn the lights off and stick it in my nose and play Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer. She has told me in no uncertain terms that this is unacceptable and her word is law right now.

_MG_1317 3. I want to drape a stethoscope around my neck and diagnose someone. I don’t really want to barge into a room and play doctor. I just want to find someone, take their vital signs, and prescribe rest and that they lose five pounds before I ask for my co-pay.

4. There are so many things to ride around her that it is killing me. With the wide halls and automatic doors, an epic race seems in order. I picture it a little bit like Mario Kart. Operation_Room,_Kitchener_Hospital_Brighton,_searching_for_a_bullet_(Photo_24-7)

5. I want to run out of our room and yell something like, “Code Blue! Stat!” I don’t know what would happen, but everyone seems to fly into a dither on TV.

6. Get a lab coat and join the doctors on their rounds. I could be some travelling expert from Albania and mutter things that make no sense when it is my turn to examine the patient.

I haven’t done any of these things yet. Every time I get a 7 year-old notion, my 46 year-old mind overrules it. Thus far. While this wonderful place heals the sick, there is no hope of them helping me, the incurably immature.