Now I’ve told several people about this and not one shared the sense of surprise or amazement that I felt in this experience. It turns out I may be a little “rustic” when it comes to my sensibilities. If you find yourself rolling your eyes at the number of exclamation points I am about to use, I apologise.

First impressions: Wow, this is a pretty nice place. That’s it. Just thought it was nice. We were introduced to our waiting team. Is that normal in fancy places? Two guys? We got our menu’s and made drink orders. As we scanned the menu, an Asian man came to our table. He whipped out his penis.

No, that last sentence was to make sure you were paying attention. This whole thing may interest only me. Anywho, he was the sommelier and came to discuss wine choices. Mrs Buddy Jim and he talked for a while. She ordered a bottle of wine.

He came back with the wine and Joe did the tasting. (Story about this?).

Our appetizer came. Smoked fish. Good stuff. After clearing away the plates, the waiter came by with a crumb scraper. I had never seen anything like this before. I have since learned it is a fairly standard thing at restaurants without paper napkins or speed limit signs nailed to the wall.

The other three had soup. Crumbs scraped after the bowls were cleared. Time for the main course. The three men got the Surf and Turf. Crab-stuffed lobster and Ribeye steaks. Mrs Buddy Jim got scallops.

First, they brought out these little contraptions. Three silver bars, with a ring at the top and one in the middle. They brought a little candle and put them in the ring in the middle. Then lit the candle. Then brought out a little tin of melted butter for the top ring. Goddamned classy is what that is. Goddamned classy.

The food:

For starters, the scallops were the size of an 8 year old’s fist. Huge fuckers. I think she got 5 of them on the plate, and she was stuffed after 2 and a half.

I’m one of the 8 people on planet earth that doesn’t have multiple orgasms over lobster. It tastes pretty good. That’s all. I’m sorry, I don’t get much out of it.

The steak was sublime, however. At first I thought it might be the best I’ve ever had. But as I got closer to the bone, the rareness became “largely uncooked.” So, point deduction on that. Now it is only the 3rd best steak I’ve ever had. Originally, they brought the lobster with a filet mignon, but I ordered the ribeye. They apologized profusely, took the plate away, and returned INSIDE OF TWO MINUTEs with the correct order. All told, I had 4 people apologize about that steak.

Dessert. I don’t remember what the others got, because, frankly, I was too immersed in the single greatest dessert I have ever had in my entire life, as god is my witness.

And it had pears in it. I don’t really care for pears. I don’t hate them. Just, feh. Pears and lobsters. Big whoop.

It was a poached pear in a tart shell. On one side, a small scoop of horchata flavored ice cream. On the other side, a small pool of caramel. On top of the pear was a flavored whip cream. I’m sorry, I can’t remember the flavor. In the whipped cream, a dried pear slice (It tasted sweet, too. Perhaps it was slightly glazed with sugar?) Piercing the middle of the dried pear slice, and resting in the whipped cream was a thin edible stick of a flavor I couldn’t recognize.

And it was delicious. God help me but it was spectacular.

Joe got a dessert wine. Remind me to post about Joe and wine.

Then the bill came. I’ll spare all the teasing leading up to the big reveal. It was expensive, I don’t mind telling you. After tip, the bill came to…

$650.00

No lie. And you know what? It was almost worth every penny.

There’s no where to go after that. We ended up going to the room early that night. Nothing more could happen to us. We had our full allotment of pleasure. Fucking perfect day. Perfect.

1. A three walled structure with its own patio.
2. Air conditioned
3. Water misters
4. Flat screen TV and DVD player
5. Refrigerator stocked with free juice, water and soda.
6. A couch
7. Two recliners.
8. Anuther chair.
9. Newspapers: Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and a Vegas paper
10. Fruit plate: And it wasn’t all melon either. Oranges, kiwi, grapes, kiwi. It rocked.

So we had a good time sitting away from all the rabble. We went back to the Spa area to sit in the whirlpool and steam room. Nothing interesting to relate except for the above. We just sort of sat around till it was time for dinner.

More relaxment.

 The day started with massages. We made reservations for massages (Massai?) a couple days previous. Joe wanted (and got) the girl who walks on your back. Buddy Jim and wife got some sort of couples massage. They didn’t talk too much about it. Maybe it was fruity and sexual, I don’t know. They both just said it was “nice.”

Now, my massage was something for the ages. It was their signature treatment, the masseuse told me. It involves… wait, let’s do this chronologically.

Woke up, showered. Went to the spa. A spa guy showed us around the facility. Actually, he was the only guy the whole trip who didn’t appear to get his jollies by serving us. He was perfunctory. Ah well. Gave us bathrobes, slippers, and showed us our lockers. A quick review of the men’s lockers:

Cleaner than you can imagine any room where men are the exclusive occupants.

• Shower rooms, not stalls. They had a dressin’ area, and a shower area almost the size of my entire bathroom at home. Showers had liquid soap, shampoo, and conditioner. Each shower had a loofah too.
• Hair stations with brushes and combs, hairdryers, and various types of goo to put in your hair.
• Joe told me that you could ask for a toothbrush and toothpaste if you wanted.
• Toilet seats that wipe you automatically.

I lied about that last one. But it was pretty damn swanky. So after donning our robes, we (Joe and I) sat in the waiting area and read the LA papers. I helped myself to some melon-infused water. The water pitchers had little melon balls floating around in them. Ooh la la.

I was kind of nervous about the massage.  I figured the masseuse would be a girl, and I was worried she would be attractive. Pretty girls rubbing you down with hot oils, … well you get the picture. I didn’t want to look like a barbarian by getting a huge raging boner while she rubbed my shoulders.

Well, the masseuse was attractive. And friendly. I hate that.

Just to remove the suspense, I didn’t have any penis-related mishaps. Let me describe the massage itself.

The room was dark. New age jazz was playing over the speakers. Candles are lit. The masseuse tells me to remove my bathing suit and get under the towel while she looks away. I do so. The massage starts with my face. She wrapped sage scented towels around my neck/jowls and sort of caresses, rubs my face with the towel. She then gives me a brief scalp massage. Pretty f-in’ sweet way to start things off.

We then move to the arms. She rubs this warm scented oil type stuff on my arms, legs, chest, and stomach. After each body part, the oil sort of dries and she buffs it off with a towel, making my skin tingly. I turn over and she does the same thing to my back. This was even better because I could relax more.

After this I get a large bathtub. She tells me that there are more essential oils in there, so don’t rub my eyes. There were rose petals floating around in there too. The water was the perfect temp. Hot enough that you get that “oooooooooo” feeling as it hits your skin, but cool enough that you could slide right in without getting shocked by the heat.

I soak for about 15 minutes. Just contemplating. Pouring the water over me. Just relaxing. She comes back in and, since she can tell that I’m a pretty regular Joe and not accustomed to such things, asks if I’ve ever had a bath with rose petals in it.

“I can assure you I have not,” I said. I swear it didn’t sound so painfully formal when I said it. Imagine Jeff Lebowski saying that, and you’d have a rough idea of how I sounded.

So then I had a standard full body massage. Again, it was just right. A lot of masseuses (Masseusi?) are too rough. I’d say the majority of them are too rough. Are you a masseuse? If so, you are too rough. Just trust me on this. Anyway, she wasn’t too rough. You want the person to work your muscles around, bend things in new directions, that sort of thing. But there’s a thin line between working out the kinks and inflicting pain. If the Nazi’s could find this line, so should your average masseuse. She danced on that line like a goddamned ballerina.

Sorry about that last line. A little corny, perhaps, but I got a kick out of it as I was typing.

Anywho, both arms, the chest, and legs, and flip on my back for the same thing. She did my toes. She fucking did my toes. That may have been the best part. The little piggy that ate roast beef hasn’t had that kind of attention paid to him in decades.

So that wrapped up the massage. 100 minutes. I could barely walk when I left the room. The relaxation kind of creeped up on me. I never entered that “stoned zone” until it was time to get up and leave. She held a silver platter with cards and told me to pick one. I picked one that said “Tolerance.” It told me to practice tolerance of others and myself. I kinda wish I had something more challenging, but fate does what it will. I went to the waiting room and met Joe there. I don’t really remember what we talked about. Perhaps we didn’t talk at all. I think we were both in the afterglow.

• the recliners had pads almost as thick as my pillow at home
• Free towels.
• the girls who bring you drinks at the Venetian are very attractive
• those drinks the girls bring you are expensive.
• Mojito’s: $12.

Monday at the pool was the first time I ever had a mojito. I was under the impression that it was a gay drink. I’m just insecure enough to be frightened away from trying something because it is tinged with “gay.” But for some reason, I was reading up on drinks before I left and I found out that Hemingway liked mojito’s so that made it okay for me. They are really quite tasty too. It is rum and something else and has mint leaves. I detected a lemon-limey taste to it. The first one I had you couldn’t really taste the alcohol, which i like. Later ones had more alcohol which kinda sucked.

I had terrible luck gambling. Lost money incredibly fast on the slots. Usually, you’ll lose $10, win $7, lose $5, win $3, and so forth until you lose it all. I would put $20 in and not win once. Twenty bucks right down the drain. And it happened about 5 times too. Just terrible luck. I played craps too. The limits were a little high for me ($10) but the money lasted a bit longer. Still ended up losing the money quickly.

Oooooh. Here’s an embarrassing story. I know how to play craps. I’ve played it online for a while. I understand the rules. The etiquette. The way the game works, the shooter (guy who throws the dice) revolves around the table, each person taking a turn when someone “craps out.” I thought my turn was coming up. I’m standing at one end of the craps table. The person to my right crapped out. I thought that meant I would be next. Except they kept not sending the dice my way. Then, I look up and see another guy throwing the dice towards me. “Okay,” i thought. “Here we go,” I picked up the dice.

Everyone yells out “Ooooooohhhh” The guy throwing the dice looks at me and says “What the fuck are you doing?” The craps dealers were putting money on the table for the winners, and suddenly took it all back, and looked at me like I was retarded. Justifiably so, because apparently I had been infected with Temporary Mongoloidism. As you’ve probably surmised, it wasn’t my turn to throw the dice. It was the other guys turn. I had interfered with the roll and canceled everyone’s  bet. The whole table was staring at me like I had just announced a enthusiastic preference for sucking off Nazi cocks.

“I’m sorry,” I said, meek as hell.

“That’s one for the highlight reel,” said one of the craps dealers.

Yes, I DID want to run away.

No, I didn’t.

But I did leave a little while later. After I placed a couple bets at the wrong times. Craps is complicated, and you are allowed to make some bets at certain times, and other bets at other times. I was so discombobulated by picking up the dice, that I lost my concentration and was putting chips down at inappropriate times. So I did everyone a favor and vamoosed. Is there anything more galling than looking like a complete and utter tool?

Tuesday night we went to a lower class casino, with $5 craps. I did a lot better there. No inappropriate bets. No picking up dice that landed near me. Still lost all my money, but at least the experience lasted longer, and no one wanted to kill me.

At somepoint on Tuesday we decided that if we won enough money on Tuesday night, we’d get a cabana for Wednesday. This was to go along with the massages we had reserved and the dinner at the fancy restaurant. Then, late in the afternoon, Buddy Jim won $500 on a slot machine. Cabana time, baby!

It was a fairly spectacular trip. Nothing went wrong. Service was great. You actually came away thinking that waiters were genuinely fulfilled to refill your water glass. Of course they weren’t but they were so good, you could almost think they were.

I left for Vegas on Sunday morning. Flew to Dallas where I met up with my buddy Joe, who had flown in from South Carolina. The usual Haven’t-seen-you-in-years-clumsy-male-hug follows. Neither of us had eaten so we grabbed some Mickey D’s before getting on the plane to Vegas (Those steak bagels rock, I’m kinda ashamed to say.). Standard flight there. When you leave the plane and enter the terminal, you get the first hint that you aren’t in a regular airport. There are slot machines in the airport. Joe and I went to play a little bit, but we only had coins. Slot machines do not take coins anymore. Even the 25 cent machines. So screw that. We took a tram to the main terminal, and that was the first taste of being in Vegas. Huge billboards (as big, if not bigger than billboards you see on the highway) advertising Carrottop and Cirque du Soliel and Celine Dion, and dozens of other shows, slot machines, fancy gift shops. Many casinos had their own little plaza in the airport where people could check in. The Venetian did not have this. So we stand for a half an hour waiting for our bags and just taking in the vibe. I had expected to see lots of really good looking, glamorous people, but most everyone was a regular schmuck like Joe and I. Joe noted that everyone arriving was excited to be there, and everyone on their way out had a “I want to get out of here” look.

On retrieving our bags we starting wandering around looking for the exit, where we would be picked up by the rest of the party, my buddy Jim and his wife. Went out one door, and only saw cabs. Went back in, and down the escalator, and didn’t see a door. So we went back up, except the up escalator took us beyond the original floor we were on, so we had to find a down escalator to get to the original floor with the exit toward the cabs. That was what we wanted. We just walked past the cabs, and found Jim and Sonia parked and waiting for us. Again with the Haven’t-seen-you-in-years-clumsy-male-hugs-except-with-Jim’s-wife-too situation before we left for the Venetian.

The ride there was sort of weird. I don’t know what I was expecting. The small part of Vegas we saw in the 4 minute ride between the airport and the Venetian was kinda run down. With palm trees. No different than any other inner city. Except with palm trees. Kinda dirty. Kinda industrial. It probably takes a lot of industrial-type work to make the tourist parts of Vegas work. 

Check in was really easy. Got to the room.

It blew us away. We knew it was a suite already. We had seen the pictures and watched the little 360 flash video program on the website. But it doesn’t prepare you. Lemme just run down the details:

• Bathroom
  • Marble floors and countertops.
  • Huge shower and a separate huge bathtub
  • lots of fluffy towels
  • 2 bathrobes
  • Some sort of chickie-pie make up station separate from the sinks
  • Separate room for the toiler, comes with a phone.
• Bedroom
  • Canapies over queen size beds.
  • Television set
  • wine glasses and regular glasses
  • nightly turn down service with chocolates in a rather elaborate box
• Living area
  • Sunken
  • another television set
  • couch with fold away bed
  • minibar: We didn’t investigate the mini bar. The concierge told us that you get charged just by picking something up, not necessarily consuming it. So we avoided temptation.
  • View of mountains behind the strip. We could see the airport to our right.

It had a hair dryer, ironing board and iron, the fancy soaps and shampoo. Fax machine. Internet connection. Fancy fashion magazines in the living room and bathroom. A loofah. A massaging spray in the shower. But no coffee maker, which was decided to be odd.

After getting settled, we… what the hell did we do? I can’t remember. Did we go to the pool? I think we gambled a bit. Wow. I cannot remember what happened between bringing our luggage into the room and getting dinner.

We ate at a Mexican joint. Although I suppose it would be wrong to call it a joint. Dinner for the four of us was about $180. The carne asada I had was probably the best steak I’ve ever had. The shops and restaurants in the Venetian are in a mock Venice type thing. We ate by a canal with gondolas, and listened to the gondoliers sing Italian opera as we ate our Mexican food. Pretty spiffy.

We were all pretty tired, so we went back to the room. I had to drag Joe with us. He had the gambling fever. He lost $20 on slots really quick, and had that dazed look some people get. I was able to convince him we had plenty of time. We went back to the room and sat around and talked. We played blackjack and poker with M&Ms for a while. Buddy Jim fell asleep at about 8, and the rest of us followed.

Kinda funny: As I was waiting to fall asleep, Buddy Jim got a little restless in his sleep. He said out loud as he turned over “No, no, no. Jesus, Fuck!” then he settled down in bed. 3 seconds later he farts really loud. Pooooooot. Poot. Poooooooot. Poot. Poot. I got to giggling, but everone else was asleep so I didn’t have anyone to feed my giggles. I fell asleep.

Me:                  Now he’s giving you articles about things you haven’t even talked about

Frau                Yup, what’s next?

Me:.                 He’s going to start subscribing you to magazines he finds interesting.

Me:.                 And books. And CDs

Me:.                 And buying your clothes

Me:.                 Lots and lots of capri pants

Frau                You mean peddle pushers?  That is what he calls them

Me:.                 Yes. He wants to be able to see your ankles

Frau                that’s discusting

Me:.                 It’s spelled disgusting, by the way

Me:.                 and it is, I admit

Frau                So why go there

Me:.                 I can’t help myself

Me:.                 It amuses me

Me:.                 To think of Willy lusting after your ankles

Frau                You are weird, you know that?

Me:.                 I do know that.

Me:.                 At least I’m not the one consumed with Ankle-lust, like Willy

Frau                You’re sick.  Man, my day started with [deleted for privacy’s sake], bad enough one would think, now I have this old man in my head having strange lusts over whatever.  How can I face that guy today.  He already got on my nerves with his stupit article.

Me:.                 Just be careful he doesn’t pretend to drop a pencil or anything to get close to your ankles. Hopefully, he will just try and sniff them. Let’s hope he doesn’t try to lick them with his sandpaper-like cow’s tongue.

Me:.                 I’m really disturbed. It bothers ME sometimes

Frau                What?

Me:.                 I don’t like having the image of Willy licking your ankles in my mind any more than you do

Me:.                 I wish I had never gone down that road

Frau                Yeah, so do I

Me:.                 I wonder if his beard would tickle as he licked your ankles

Frau                You are so sick!!

Frau                I am taking a little break now.  Gotta get this out of my head

Me:.                 Yeah, let’s pretend we never had this conversation

Frau                You wished.  Payback’s a bitch

I bought a house in late May. Soon after, he brought in a newspaper article about how it wasn’t a very good time to buy houses. He brings in articles to the Frau frequently. He also criticizes her clothes a lot. Telling her that she’s wearing the wrong season. She wore capri pants a week or so ago, and he couldn’t stop talking about that. I guess he got all hot and bothered at seeing some sweet German ankle.

This contract ends at the end of July. I will be on vacation for most of two weeks in the middle. I think I will need to think of something else to write about once Willy is gone.

or

“After work I think I will go to the HEIDENPLATZ!”

Apparently, there is a German dessert that Willy likes. I can’t remember the name of it. It was one of those impossibly long, complex German names. For the sake of the story, let’s call it Pflugenstauffentorte. Pflugenstauffentorte consists of chocolate cake, cherries, liquor of some sort, and whipped cream. It is log shaped. Willy made something like it in his George Foreman grill on Monday night. He brought it to work to show to the Frau. Except it was really small. And had no liquor. Or whipped cream. And he used marascino (sp?) cherries instead of the proper kind. The conversation went something like this:

“I wanted to show you my PfloooooogenSHtauffenTORTE.”

“Your what?” she responded, as if he just volunteered to show her his penis.

“My PflooooogenSHtauffenTORTE.”

“You mean ‘pflugenstauffentorte”

“Okay… ,” He proceeds to explain to her what goes in a pflugenstauffentorte. She corrects him. Then he explains that no, he didn’t make a pflugenstauffentorte, he made an ersatz pflugenstauffentorte. He pronounces ersatz like Air stats. And he keeps repeating the word. Air statz PfloooogenSHtauffenTORTE. Air statz PfloooogenSHtauffenTORTE. Air statz PfloooogenSHtauffenTORTE. Apparently, that isn’t how you pronounce ersatz in German. She corrects him. He corrects her. She corrects him. And back and forth two or three more times before she finally says “It ees a German word! I am German! I know how to pronounce zis word!” And he just walks away, saying “it’s an air statz pflooogenSHtauffenTORTE.” to no one in particular.

Later, she comes to me and asks if I was listening. She tells me he had the thing in a little plastic sandwich bag and that it looked like a dog turd.

Just for the record, I turned 40 last February. Friday afternoon, after work, I’m sitting by the pool at my apartment complex. I get into a conversation with a kid about the Grateful Dead. I’m a big fan. We’re shooting the shit for a while when he stops to do some calculations. Jerry Garcia died in 1995. That was 12 years ago. “How old are you?” the kid asks.

“Guess,” I say. I like for people to guess my age. They always guess something much younger. Maybe they’re just being nice, but it IS nice to hear someone thinks you are 29 years old.

“I don’t know,” the kid says. “Umm…. 50?”

“Fuck you.” I say.