At about 9:15 p.m. there’s a knock on my hotel room door. I open it up, only to find two helpless twenty-one -year-olds holding dress shirts and pants. They give me their best sheepish looks.
Millennials don’t iron.
I sigh dramatically and tell my stepson Chase and his best friend Ben to come on in, I’ll iron their clothes. Besides, I can’t have them embarrassing themselves and looking all wrinkly while I rock out my Halston Heritage dress with side cut-outs and super high-but-amazing Diane Von Furstenburg strappy heels.
We’re going to THE CLUB.
We’re on a Vegas trip for Chase’s belated twenty-first birthday, and not only are we going to one of Vegas’ hottest clubs, but we’ll get to see Calvin Harris DJ. I’ve been hyping the whole Vegas club scene to Chase for months. And as much as I hate to admit it…tick-tock… it will only be a matter of a few years before I start getting strange looks from the other patrons in such establishments. You know the look, a.k.a. what the hell are you doing here old lady? Besides, I tell Chase and Ben that even though I’m old, it will be easier for them to get in the club quickly since they have a female with them. I know how the bouncers like the keep the male-female ratio in check, otherwise things could turn into one big sausage party pretty quickly.
Around 10:30 p.m. we arrive at THE CLUB, where I effortlessly pass through security. Chase, on the other hand, has his ID checked about twenty different times from twenty different serious-looking dudes, in addition to some serious patting down. You know that rubber stamp you get for admittance? His arm basically looked like a tattoo sleeve by the time he got inside.
We first check out the multi-level main club area where Calvin Harris will eventually be performing. There’s a “warm-up” DJ first, so the area isn’t crowded at all. We’re told that a lot of people first head to the terrace, then migrate inside as the night progresses. This seems like a good idea to us; the terrace is beautiful and overlooks the Vegas strip. We hunker down and I tell Chase to get us some drinks as payment for my ironing services. I say I want a glass of champagne; it can be the cheapest champagne they have, it doesn’t matter, I say.
About ten minutes later he returns with my champagne, a rum and Coke for himself and a small bottled water for Ben. He looks like a deer in headlights as he tells us the drinks cost seventy-five dollars.
Yup, you read that right. What the ham and cheese is wrong with you, Omnia Nightclub? (Yup, you are no longer THE CLUB, I am calling you out by name.) I wasn’t that naïve to know that Vegas drink prices were high, but seventy-five bucks? I apologized profusely to Chase and told him I would make it up to him since I had no idea the drinks contained pure gold. In talking to other patrons, it sounded like this was par for the course; the two girls next to us paid $95 for whatever they were drinking. (If your mouth isn’t hanging open in shock and disgust by now, you must be a Kardashian or a Disick, because this was most definitely NOT what I came for, Calvin Harris. See what I did there?) So, in summary, no, 50 Cent, we can’t go up in da club with a bottle of bub because we can’t f*cking afford one.
The night only got worse from there. For one, my beautiful shoes turned out to be devil shoes from hell, as every step I took resulted in shooting pain. The little rubber things I put inside the shoe to help cushion my foot? As useless as a ten-dollar bill at Omnia night club. (Seriously, I will NEVER let the whole drink thing go.)
Eventually Chase and Ben did meet a group of girls (good luck getting them to pay for drinks, ladies) so I slowly drifted away, not wanting to be the creepy older woman hanging around people half my age. (Or younger. Yikes.) I decided to just do some laps around the club, hoping that maybe somebody would talk to me. (Spoiler alert: nobody did.) Since I was wearing Satan’s Sandals this just made my entire loser trek even more miserable. Plus, I couldn’t get back into the main club area anymore; every time I walked by, a bouncer was there saying no more people could be admitted. What? How could it have filled up that quickly? How were we ever going to see Calvin Harris?
After a few more laps and growing frustration, I had had it. I told the boys I was leaving, and then it promptly started to rain, even though we were in the desert and it was August. Everyone on the terrace made a beeline to the ONE exit (again, really Omnia? Isn’t that a safety concern?) and as soon as I saw any exit door, I took it. I was promptly deposited outside Caesar’s Palace on the sidewalk.
I scooted inside where I saw the (still) impossibly long line for the club, then changed into my flats. I had never been so happy to see a pair of crappy ballerina slippers in my life. I then walked across the street to The Flamingo where my husband was playing poker. Sensing my irritation (and probably because I was soaked wet at this point), he gathered up his chips.
“Come on, honey,” I said. “Let’s go eat.”
None of us ever did see Calvin Harris, as apparently there was no room in the main club? (#Omniaisatotalscam)
So much for sippin’ Bacardi like it was my birthday.
And that is how I found myself eating a hot dog and tater tots at 12:30 a.m. in Vegas. I was a bit overdressed for the Haute Doggery, but whatever…it was a fancy hot dog place, okay?
Annapalooza 