My would be husband woke me up at around eight o'clock that night. We were going "out." I didn't ask where because I figured this was where the wacky mad cap fun was supposed to come in. They were supposed to whisk me off to see naked tuba playing or ashkenazis on ice.


Actually I was supposed to be getting married.


The showgirl's plan was to have Thanksgiving dinner and then to get my gay husband and I hitched by Elvis. I had the whole outfit-white lacey top with sequines, white thighs with bows, I even had little blue earrings. Old new, borrowed, blue.


We ended up at the Orleans watching a band called the Wild Celts playing in an "Irish Bar." Why there was an Irish bar at a Mardi Gras themed casino, I don't know and honestly I don't care to ponder it for that long.

Take me anywhere I will end up in an Irish bar. I flew to Paris and climbed Monmartre and ended up at an Irish bar. If I ever go to St. Petersburg, I guarauntee you I will end up at a place called O'Flanagan's. So it makes sense that I would fly to Vegas for Thanksgiving and end up in an Irish bar.

The Wild Celts were anything but. The creativity of their name alone made me realize how easy it is for a garage band that knows how to play a couple of U2 songs to consistently get work. Throw in a lead singer with long hair and an Irish accent and you have casino gold.


We end up at New York New York listening to a Billy Joel impersonator. Again, I came all this way to end up in the very place that I left. The Snapper (Abby Courtney et al) group was having their own fabulous Thanksgiving at the very moment I was walking past the enormous glittering big apple disco ball. I sat at the bar drinking a vodka tonic and winning at video poker while drunken people played air guitar and sang along to "Piano Man." This was an"It's a Small World" version of NYC complete with insanity inducing music.

And who are these people? The casino was packed. I mean understand why I'm there. I'm escaping yet another holiday gathering with whos who in genetic disorders and forensic psychology. My great aunt was washing her hands in the toilet to save in her water bill meanwhile she had fifty thousand dollars wrapped up in tinfoil in her freezer. And she was one of the "better adjusted" ones. I look out at this sea of polo shirts, acid washed jeans, cheap faux silky shirts, processed hair, fake orange tans, and baseball caps and I understand why I am destined to walk alone in this life.


My husband to be was winning at the blackjack table and the Showgirl and Frog Prince were flirting in the background. To keep myself from drowning in a puddle of my own drool from the boredom of it all I decided to play a game which I often play to enliven boring evenings out. I call it "What can I stick down my shirt to make things more interesting?" Now usually I confine myself to cellphones. Ocassionally I stick pens down there. Now the drinks at New York New York come with little stirrers. So to keep track of how many drinks I downed, I started sticking each drink stirrer down my shirt so only the New York New York label peaked out. This was the height of hilarity for my companions.


The Showgirl started making rumbling about being tired. She had flown all this way for action, and she was beginning to get impatient. Now it's true I have flown over an ocean for a hot piece of ass, but that was attractive French ass that could cook. Flying to Vegas for whatever flabby excuse for sexifyingness the Frog Prince could muster. Well that's just sad.


Princeton was loathe to go as he was up 500 dollars. He whispered to me that he and I should abandon the Showgirl and get a hotel room someplace decadent on the strip. The idea was becoming more and more attractive. But there is still that New Englander be polite, don't cause trouble drive in me-you know the one that likes to suffer in silence so others can have "fun." Instead we went home to have pecan pie and cosmopolitans in the hot tub. I averted my eyes when Frog Prince comes out in his bathing suit and try not to think that he actually someone's seduction goal.


As my students would say, "That ain't right."