Sin City

I spent four days in Las Vegas last week and I can confirm that it still lives up to its nickname, Sin City.  However, the original sins for which it was named, lust, greed and envy have been replaced by gluttony and sloth.  I have never seen so many overweight, lazy, sloppy, shiftless, tattooed, slovenly dressed misfits collected in one place in my life.  I was attending a conference so I never left the MGM complex that contains the MGM Grand, the three Signature Hotel buildings, the huge casino and arena as well as five pools, ten restaurants and more bars and fast food places than I could count.  Oh, and one wedding chapel.

Each morning at 9 am I would make the fifteen-minute walk from my hotel room to the conference center and even at that early hour – well, early by Vegas standards - there would be little troops of drunken youths.  They would be carrying their beer bottles or 42 oz plastic glasses complete with a stand that enabled them put the beverage right on the floor next to the pool or lounge chair.  As the day progressed, more and more of these youths and not so young folks would be wandering around seemingly aimlessly between pools and bars.

It is so sad for me to see that so many of the young kids today are grossly overweight. These are the people that are supposed to be trim and fit and working to support me and everyone else on social security, and instead they don’t look like they could work anyplace that didn’t provide them with a paper hat.  I suppose the good news is that they have not suffered the sin of Pride, looking at the way they dress, the way they eat and the way they trash talk.  Apparently pride in appearance or demeanor is not something they need to worry about.

One afternoon I grabbed a premade salad at one of the delis in the complex. I sat down to eat it and noticed a family of four sitting across the room each eating a whole pizza with large bottles of coke.  They were all interacting with their phones or tablets and for the entire fifteen minutes that I was there, they didn’t say a word to one another.  What a vacation!

I did suffer from one culinary meltdown, but I’m delighted that I allowed my evil self to win this argument.  At one of the restaurants they had a side dish called Duck Fat Fried Potatoes with a Baconnaise sauce.  Now this is a cardiac stopping, cholesterol boosting, calorie laden, gastronomic feast.  We had one order for five people so we didn’t pig out completely, but oh my goodness, what a lovely combination of flavors, textures, aromas and mouth feel.  Very soul satisfying.