The Upgrade: A Cautionary Tale of a Life Without Reservations by Paul Carr Read Free Book Online Page B

waiting.
    She’d already been in town for six hours, having flown in from London, via Minneapolis—and yet, despite her jetlag and my hangover, we couldn’t help checking out the hotel casino before sleep. By 3:30 a.m., after dinner, a nightcap and a failed attempt to beat the slots, we finally made it to the room, where I’d flipped on the TV and started to unpack for the first time since leaving London.
    All I wanted to do was sleep, but the rest of the hotel was still wide-awake, as if it were still the middle of the evening. Children still roamed the corridors, row upon row of bored-looking fat women pumped money into slots, and the bachelorette girls—those loud, loud girls—seemed like they were just getting started. Sure enough, at 7 a.m. we’d be awoken by them returning to their rooms—happy, drunk and singing Britney Spears’ “Toxic” at the top of their formidable lungs.

    Michelle came out of the bathroom, dressed in a long t-shirt and what appeared to be bed socks, and climbed into one of the two double beds. I rescued the last shirt from the bottom of my bag—its creases now permanent—and laid it inside the wardrobe, on the one shelf that Michelle had left for me.
    “So, how’s the sweepstake going?” she asked.
    “What sweepstake?”
    “Robert’s sweepstake … the one about you being …”
    She stopped. “He hasn’t told you?”
    “No, he hasn’t,” I said. “What sweepstake?”
    “How long you’ll be able to stay in America before you either get arrested, married or seriously injured. Everybody we know in London is playing.”
    “You’re kidding me. Even you?”
    “It’s just for fun.”
    “I’m sure it is. How long did you give me?”
    “Oh, I said it would probably happen this weekend. I mean, seriously, you, in Las Vegas? Ha!”
    Click .
    She reached over and turned out the bedside lamp. “Goodnight, honey.”
    Unbelievable. OK, so I’d only been in the country for a day before ending up drunk and naked in a hotel corridor, but that—well—that was just a glitch. Getting it out of my system. And, anyway, compared to the animals I’d seen in the hotel lobby, I was a saint: a paragon of virtue, celibacy and self-preservation.
    And yet, Sin City or no, after last night’s madness I was definitely going to calm down for a few days.

302
    The next morning I felt much better—human, almost. Michelle and I had breakfast at the House of Blues bar and restaurant—pulled pork sandwiches, with orange juice with just a touch of champagne. Hell, it was almost lunchtime anyway.
    Michael’s flight was due to arrive at noon, and it was now pushing 1 p.m. so we headed down the Strip to his hotel. He’d texted to say he was staying at the Mandalay Bay Hotel, so that’s where we sat, in the lobby, waiting.
    A stunning waitress—all legs and breasts and hair, she could easily have been a model, or I suppose an off-duty stripper—came to take our obligatory drinks order.
    One of the things you soon realize about Vegas is that there is no free seating; you sit, you drink, you pay. I ordered a Diet Coke. I really meant it this time: no drinking.
    Twenty minutes passed. Half an hour. Where the hell was Michael? After forty-five minutes, I texted him. “Where the hell are you?”
    The reply came in a few seconds: “THEhotel/Mandalay Bay/ Lobby, where you?”
    “That’s where we are.”
    “No, you’re not.”
    I called the waitress over.
    “Another round, sir? Something stronger?”
    “No, thank you. I was just wondering—we were supposed to meet our friend in the hotel lobby—is this the only one?”
    “Yes and no,” she said, “this is the only lobby in this hotel. But it’s not the only hotel in this building.”
    “Um …”
    “Is your friend staying at the Mandalay Bay Hotel, or the hotel at Mandalay Bay?”

    I showed her Michael’s text, and she smiled—this happened all the time. She pointed us the way from the lobby of the Mandalay Bay Hotel and through to