Kat and I made it out to Las Vegas for the first time in forever (Dec. 2005 to be exact) for a wedding. Everyone was already staying at the Flamingo, so we decided to stay at the same hotel as the rest of the group. Jim and Adrienne were coming to the wedding too so we split our room with them.

I wasn’t particularly excited to be staying at the Flamingo, but I was definitely excited that the Flamingo is a Harrah’s property and I recently got to diamond status so I was going to take advantage of all of the benefits that membership had to offer. No more waiting in the long line at the baggage check, taxi stand, cashier, buffet, or even the front desk. There were a few times that it really paid off too. Like skipping the 30-person deep line at the Caesar’s buffet on Thursday afternoon, or skipping the taxi line in the middle of the afternoon; minutes count when it’s 110 degrees outside and I know Jim and Adrienne appreciated not having to wait for five other groups to get their shit together before getting in their cab to go back to the airport. But the best of all had to be when we tried to eat dinner at the Italian restaurant in the Flamingo on Saturday night at 8:30pm. The place was pretty crowded and a couple in front of us was told that the wait for a table would be anywhere between 5-25 minutes. When I got to the hostess stand and presented my diamond card, there was suddenly available seating in a comfortable booth. I am drunk with power.

Unfortunately no matter how drunk with power I get, my name will still be spelled wrong, even when it is spelled right on the fucking card I handed them:

Caesar’s buffet

Paris buffet

Fuckers.

The gambling didn’t work out too well for us this time. As a matter of fact, it was downright brutal. I think I only had a couple of winning sessions (that’s positive at all) over the course of four days. Rough. I didn’t play any poker though because honestly there really wasn’t enough time to sit for an extended period of time and get some good playing in since we were there for a wedding and wanted to see people more than we wanted to get full-on gambling done so we only played craps and blackjack.

The wedding was nice, but I was in a poor physical state for most of Friday. Most everyone got into Vegas on Thursday night, so we did a lot of drinking that night. A lot. I got Jim so drunk that I convinced him to play craps with us. It was around 5am so there was plenty of room at the table to get him in. In his first go at it, Jim had an amazing roll. He was the only person that I saw make the minimum fire bet requirements, making the 4, 6, 8, and 9 points. He crapped out rolling for the 5. Two more points and he would have been worth a $1000.

Unfortunately the late-night drinking/gambling spree meant that I felt like complete ass the next day (also known as “the wedding day” or “the reason we flew five hours in the first place”). It was odd. I woke us all up at 11:00am and demanded that everyone get up and start getting ready for the 1pm wedding. I was in a panic. Kevn had told me that the chapel had some crazy rules about people showing up late and I definitely didn’t want to miss it. I took a shower first, got my clothes together, found extra towels for everyone, and started ironing my shirt. That’s when it hit me how hung-over I really was. Halfway through ironing my shirt I had to lie down in bed and concentrate on not throwing up. I manned up and made it through the ceremony. By the time we got to the Rio for lunch, I was really starting to feel better. Unfortunately, I wasn’t better and I had to stop mid-sentence to urgently find a bathroom. I didn’t make it all the way there. Instead, I left a present in the trash can outside the men’s bathroom. I still contend that I was just nervous about the wedding. Or it might have had something to do with the water I was drinking, it had gone bad. Or maybe I was just overheated. I hear heat exhaustion can lead to sickness. On the other hand, it might have been the whiskey. It tasted a bit sour, maybe it had gone bad. I’m sure that’s it.

It is finally over.

I’ve been going to Caesar’s AC in order to work my way up to diamond status in the Harrah’s rewards program for the better part of this year. Yesterday, I finally made it. What does this mean for me? No more waiting in the loser line at the buffet or at the cashier cage. Having diamond status means the pit boss immediately takes notice and won’t give you the run-around. Dealers make more of a point to learn your name, which really doesn’t affect me much since I have a unique enough name that dealers tend to remember, but is still nice. Sure there are some other cheesy benefits involved (probably some really good discounts too), but these are the most important to me.

This puts me in an exclusive club which boasts members that own nail salons all over the world, old men that have worked themselves to the bone so they can comfortably live out their final years hoping to make that final big score, aspiring rap stars perfecting their patented craps rolling style (“I snap my fingers twice at the end, ’cause that’s how we roll in my ‘hood”), and people who just have more money than they know what to do with.

In summary, I am now officially a degenerate gambler. In fact, I’m a card-carrying member.