Vegas Baby

I realize that I am an anomaly.

Very few share my spin.

Because I walk among the statistically improbable who do not care a whole lot for Disneyworld.

The rides are okay-- it is the philosophy that I cannot not embrace. I cannot accept the fantasy as real.

Which is why I hesitated for so long about visiting Las Vegas. I expected Vegas to be an adult Disneyworld where people believed the Strip’s Eiffel tower was akin to a trip to Paris or that Caesar resided in his palace.

But nothing could be farther from the truth. The wonderment of Vegas is how everyone savors its lie—that while everything is fake and over the top, no one expects anyone to believe that it is anything to the contrary.

Deceit is the guilty pleasure.

And I was full-on in this Vegas mindset as I sat through the sales pitch at the timeshare. So when the presenter asked me What do you do for a living? I could not help myself. I had to summon the grandiose. So I nonchalantly said I am a freelance writer. Which prompted him to say Wow—and what is your yearly income? To which I said probably not enough to impact the purchase of a timeshare.

My husband smiled despite bewilderment and said nothing.

But later on over a glass of wine he asked By the way--what ever made you tell that sales guy this afternoon that you were a freelance writer?

 I responded I write-- and it’s free—and we are in Vegas.

My duplicity had him howling.

Because it is more fun to knowingly claim that you are something you are not. It’s more seductive to accept the unreal as unreal. There is “magic” in deception. And it is what makes Las Vegas Sin City—the anti-Disney---and in my mind, the happiest place on Earth.