One Memory Triggers Another

My gambling brought us free tickets to the Joan Rivers show mentioned in the last post. Also mentioned was my relative ignorance regarding Las Vegas and money.

Howevah . . . my ignorance was not total, if only because some things are universal.

When Mandy and I headed for the appropriate theater, I slipped a folded twenty into my right hand and used my left hand to direct Mandy, ever so subtly, toward whatever point seemed most likely to provide happiness. A gent with a book outlining all possible chair and table arrangements seated us, but only after I had shaken hands with him and announced that we were visiting from Chicago. He returned the handshake enthusiastically and hoped that we would enjoy not only the show biut the rest of our stay as well.

At that point our relative weights had exchanged hosts by the weight of one twenty dollar bill, and he lifted the cordon separating two imaginary classes of patrons, dropped it on the other side of us, and murmured "Any place you wish." I asked Mandy to choose a spot, she did, and our host seated us, bowed, and disappeared.

A couple of minutes later, while Mandy and I were awaiting our drinks, our host seated a party of six, all late twenties in age, I should think, a couple of tables away from us, and thus below the salt. Immediately, the group's alpha male began whining, "We were hoping for a better location than this. Can't we do better than this?"

(Ha! Yes, you can, but not by whining.)

JOAN RIVERS, R.I.P.

Joan Rivers has given up the ghost at age 81 and has reminded me of an unblogged Las Vegas story you might enjoy.

Perhaps 20 years ago Mandy and I saw Joan Rivers in Las Vegas, and she was top notch. Opening for her were the Smothers Brothers and Jim Stafford, all as one act and very amusing.

A funny thing happened. It was a dinner/show at one of the major casinos (the Frontier? I'm not sure.), and after we had ordered drinks we were given menus.

Now I knew Mandy really liked lobster, and the only two entrees on this menu were chicken and lobster - $25 and $50, respectively.

After a minute Mandy said "I'm getting the chicken." I said "Whaaat? You love lobster and seldom have a chance at it."

"I know, Donnie, but it's too expensive."

"So you're getting a $25 chicken?"

She came to her senses and had the lobster. I had the chicken 'cuz I'm not that big a lobster fan. I imagine the waiter thought I was the stereotypical cheapskate husband or something.

This, by the way, was the trip I blogged about in a string of entries beginning May 11, 2008, the trip during which she called her girlfriend and they had me make a bet for each of them.

At the time Mandy was worrying about the $50 lobster I was $9,000 ahead. I do b'lieve that if I'd been just a tad more informed, I could have slipped the waiter and the cook a few bucks each and had a perfectly good rare steak as a substitute for the chicken, but that trip was just the very beginning of my education about the effect of money in Las Vegas.