Vegas III: Escape from the Wynn

Introduction

I spent Friday and Saturday nights in Vegas. I went with 11 of the most radical people in the world (sort of the Islamist arm of my Seattle friendship Muslim world) and we saw the Killers. We drank. We sang karaoke. And we drank.

It was about 4:30 AM. I was at the Wynn hotel, talking to some lovely women from Mexico. Thor was talking to Diamonds, and I was talking to Patrón.

Let's pick it up there, shall we?

Extraction

Patron was no more sober than I was, but she seemed to have boundless energy. She was bouncing from person to person and ordering tequila and driving me crazy... in a good way.

Shockingly, there weren't that many guys around. It was about 5:00 AM, and the casino was relatively empty, but it shocked me how many of the random guys who wandered past the bar chose to speak to the prostitutes that were hanging at the bar, rather than the girls Thor and I were. Maybe they knew they had no chance.

Of course, not EVERY guy is going to know he had no chance. My focus was on Patrón, and one older gentleman just wouldn't give up. My ego would have taken a beaten the likes of which it had never seen if she had chosen to hang out with him rather than me... thank goodness my ego was not put through that.

At some point, Patrón wanted to go home. I offered to escort her back. She decided she wanted some pens and grabbed about 20 from the bar... but when only 15 would fit in her purse, I took possession of the remainder and put them back where they belonged.

We bid adieu to our friends and the old guy and started on our way to her room in the Encore, which is a hotel attached to the Wynn.

First Leg

Here's the first leg of our trek to her room. The red line indicates our path, and major events are numbered on the map, with descriptions of the events below:

The first issue is that I had no idea where her room was. I had no idea what the Encore was, let alone how to get there.

The second issue, of course, is that I was not sober enough and/or aware enough to simply follow signs.

The third issue is that Patrón seemed to know where she was going.

The fourth issue is that Patrón didn't really know where she was going.

But here are the events...

1. We started at the "B Bar" we sort of slipped away as the rest of the people made merry. We took a hard right and started on our way towards the Encore and her room. We were having a fun little conversation as we walked. Then, as we approached what she thought was where we wanted to be, she challenged me to a race.
   
   
2. "Challenged you to a race?" Yes, challenged me to a race. She gave me her purse to carry. She took off her heels. And she said something like, "You win if you touch that door first." I resisted asking what I'd get if I won. But I definitely won the race.
   
   
3. I won. I won the race. She lost the race. But she left me speechless with her next act: she fell down, panting. Panting heavily. Writhing in exhaustion. It was one of the sexiest things I've ever seen, and I would bet you just about anything that she knew it. I plopped down a couple steps from her, preparing to wait her out.

Second Leg

Unfortunately, even after she stopped wiggling around so fetchingly, and I was able to overcome that distraction... we weren't where we wanted to be. Someone looking at that map now might say, "But you are! You just had to turn left to go to the Encore!", and someone might be right. But we weren't that observant, clearly, and events transpired that I'm still both amused and befuddled by.

We sat there, on the ground in a deserted part of the hotel/casino, kinda giggling, when someone approached...

4. "Sir? Miss? I need to ask you to stand up" We looked over and there was a geeky guy walking our way. I think he name was "Andy". I, naturally, popped right up, feeling a bit abashed. Patrón looked at the guy and didn't really make a move to get up. He stood a few paces away, waiting. She eventually mumbled something under her breath and I helped her to her feet. We asked for directions and he gave them to us... to go back from whence we came. I'm not quite sure why he gave us such bad directions. Did we misunderstand him? Did he misunderstand us? Or was he being a jerk on purpose? 
   
   Why would he have an attitude? Maybe it was this exchange between the three of us:
   

   Andy: Miss, you must get off of the floor.
   Patrón: I will. In a minute.
   Andy: Miss, I need you to get up now.
   Patrón: Who are you, anyway?
   Andy: I am Andy [Whomever], security team chief. Please get up.
   Patrón: (With my help, getting up) I'm getting up. Why do I have to?
   Me: Well, I don't want us to get booted from the hotel.
   Patrón: He can't throw me out. Does he know who I am?

   It was funny to me. I doubt it was funny to Andy. But, still, he escorted us as we walked back towards the bar.
   
   
5. Andy's mood didn't improve when Patrón pulled her next stunt. I can't blame her--I'm a sexy beast--and I wasn't complaining at the time. Or, rather, I wasn't complaining with all of my heart.
   
   As we walked down the empty corridor, Patrón walked with her right arm in my left arm and Andy was about eight feet to my right, keeping pace.
   
   Suddenly, Patrón made a break for the wall to the left. She lifted some sort of curtain that was acting as a wall covering-decoration thingie and stepped between it and the wall. I looked at Andy, shrugged apologetically, and followed her over to the wall to retrieve her.
   
   When I lifted the sheet she looked up at me mischievously and pulled me close to her and we kissed a little bit. It was pretty hot and it was pretty fun but I knew Andy was standing there, waiting for us to come out. When I heard him say, "Really. I am NOT in the mood for this!" I regretfully dragged us out and we continued our trek.
   
   
6. Andy let us go and Patrón and I passed the bar where we'd met. We saw our friends and she squeaked a bit about getting another drink, but I was determined to get her back to her place without getting kicked out, so after a short conversation she agreed to keep going.
   
   
7. We'd been walking, like, a LONG time at this point. I think we'd left the bar at about 5:30 and it had to be around 6:10 or so when we finally asked someone else where the Encore elevators were. The employee explained that they were back, past the bar, where we'd originally raced. 

Third Leg

We were both exhausted. We still had booze in us. Fortunately our frustrated attempt to escape the Wynn struck us both as more funny than frustrating.

And so we turned back. Again. But we were giggling about it.

8. Patrón still had more tricks up her sleeve, and she seemed to be gaining momentum as we went along. After we'd doubled-back, she once again took a special interest in a decoration along the wall... this decorative item was a wood sculpture-like feature that had a thick rope integrated into it. The ~12 feet of rope had loops on either end and was laced around the wood, hooked at either end.
   
   A nice-looking, interesting piece. Nothing spectacular, of course, but not something that all indicated it should be fiddled with. At least not to me. But I'm not Patrón.
   
   She saw it as a bit of a puzzle... or at least a challenge. As I repeatedly said, "No... no...", she unhooked part of the rope and began to unwind it from the wall. I followed her and considered whether it was better to grab her to stop her or try to talk her out of it. I didn't know her well, and I didn't know if she'd appreciate me restraining her, so I looked to the four (yes, FOUR!) employees watching in amazement as Patrón kept at her task.
   
   One employee--who was a supervisor, I think--shook her head and said, "Miss, you can NOT be serious!" but Patrón finished removing the rope and acted like she was going to sneak off with it. It would have been 100% hilarious except that I could see the supervisor closing the 25 foot gap between us and I was worried we were about to get kicked out.
   
   So it was only 99.5% hilarious.
   
   The supervisor took the rope. I explained that we'd had a little bit to drink and were just trying to get back safely to her room. Patrón was already on the move by the time the supervisor shook her head and waved me along, telling me to follow the signs to the Encore.
   
   
9. We walked past the bar again. Our friends were still there. This time I think we knew that we had to keep walking or else we'd never make it back.
   
   
10. The tenth event, and parts beyond, simply don't map very well. Not because they aren't linear events, but because for some reason my memory is extremely hazy. 
    
    We followed the signs. We were on the right track. We were making good progress. And then we saw the cones.
    
    There was a cleaning man. There were big yellow "slippery when wet" cones. And Patrón wanted a cone. So she took one. She took one of those meter-tall cones and tucked it under her right arm and ran.
    
    I looked back at the cleaning man, who was staring after her, aghast. I shrugged at him and said I'd get it back. I then took off after her, confident I'd overtake her quickly. After all, I'd beaten her in a race about 40 minutes earlier.
    
    Something funny happened, though. You know how, in video games, when you drive over a "power up" you get a speed boost? Well, for Patrón, that cone was a super speed boost.
    
    I could not catch her.
    
    She got a head start, and then she ducked in a niche in the wall and I blew right past her. She giggled and accelerated past me, as I shrugged at the three or four employees watching us--her with a big yellow cone under her arm, shuffling along at superhuman speeds and me trying to keep up.
    
    Another supervisor called out at one point, and he had the snap in his voice of someone used to being listened to. Patrón stopped on the other side of a huge column and dropped the cone. I retrieved it and had this interaction with the supervisor:
    

    Me: Hi.
    Supervisor: Where did that cone come from?
    Me: Back there... she's been running with it for about five minutes. I'm sorry.
    Supervisor: You need to take it back.
    Me: She's had a bit to drink. I'm worried that if I take the cone back she won't get to her apartment safely.
    Supervisor: Well... yes. OK. Leave it here. I'll take care of it. Get her home safely.
    Me: I will, thank you.

    It wasn't quite, "Do you know who she is?", but it did the job.

Aftermath

We found the elevator. We went to her floor. She challenged me to another race, and evidently there was some residual cone power in there because she beat me.

After some final minor issues, including the 15 pens taken from the bar spilling all over the floor when she got her keycard out, we made it. It had only taken us about an hour, but we had escaped from the Wynn.

It's no big shocker that we were asleep about 45 seconds after entering the room...