Sin City p3: Choose Your Own Vegas Adventure

Here we go again; some more Sin City apocrypha. If you haven't heeded the warning thus far, no point in starting now.

After another Hellish morning and resurrection via coffee, water, and doughnuts; we were ready to face the day albeit with a more calm start than before. Chuckie and I rendevouzed with the others in their room; most were still in bed affected by the thunderous consumption of intoxicants the night before. We coaxed Pokey out of bed with the promise of a breakfast/lunch meal in one of the fine dining establishment local to our casino.

Over the food, we all agreed that we were feeling revitalized and were ready to take on Vegas anew. Pokey was to go back to his room; round up the rest of the monkeys; have everyone shit, shower, and shave; and be ready to go by the time Chuckie and I returned from our room after having taken care of our own personal hygienic needs.

We promptly went to our room and passed out.

We came to at some point, decided that we had had, by far, enough rest now; it was time to get ready and go go go. But, where were the others?

We went down to their room to find five of them snuggled into two beds -- Sparky and Omar in one and Pokey, Kashif, and Ali in the other -- watching TV.

"Pokey, what the fuck?! It's time to go!"

"Daddy," Pokey replied. "It's bed-status. We ain't doing the moving-style."

Apparently, Vegas was too much for them to bear.

Curl up with Sparky and Omar, turn to page 3.

Pile on with Ali, Kashif, and Pokey, turn to page 5.

Get the Hell out of the sausage orgy, turn to page 7.

We left. We'll have plenty of time to watch TV when we're dead. (What does that mean?) We had yet to hit the strip altogether sober, so we went out to search for a way to remedy that state.

The Bellagio seemed like a nice joint, so we rolled in there and got ourselves a pair of thirteen dollar Bud Lights -- nice place, nice uniforms for their beer wenches. A particularly lovely cocktail girl would often come to the bar to fill her order and lean way, waaaaaaay over.

Hit on girl by rubbing face in cleavage, turn to page 11.

Continue to drink beer and to pretend you are looking thoughtfully off into the distance but really just staring at her tits, turn to page 13.

We were not nearly drunk enough yet... err... we were much too sophisticated to engage in such harassment, so we continued to drink our beers, leer, and mumble under our breath about how hot she was.

"You know, J$, I have yet to kick you ass in foosball. Everytime we meet up, I need to mop the floor with you a couple of times in foos."

"Bullshit, we'll get our foos on." Turning to the barkeep, "bartender, can we get two more of these delightful beverages; and do you have any foos up in this mug?"

"Excuse me," he responds quizzically. "Foos?"

"You know, foosball... table soccer."

"Gentlemen, this is the Bellagio. We do not have any foosball."

"Right. So, do you know where we can get some foos?"

The bartender thinks for a minute, "there is a place off of the strip called 'Pinkies.' You can try there."

Listen to the bartender's advice and go to Pinkies, turn to page 17.

Return to the strip and find your jollies elsewhere, turn to page 19.

Stay at the Bellagio, turn to page 23.

"Cabbie, take us to Pinkies!"
"Where?" he asked.
"Pinkies!"
"Ah, yes, I think I know where that is... Why are you guys going there?"
"We're going to play some foos."
"Ahhh... sure.... okay."

The cab turned into this out of the way dive that was clad in much pink and had a neon design of Wile E. Coyote flipping up the skirt of a female coyote from behind.

Go into Pinkies, turn to page 26.

Tell the cabbie to get the Hell out of Dodge, turn to page 29.

We walked in and were immediately stopped by some grizzled old man. "You can't come in here with those."

He was pointing at us. Did he mean clothes? Did he mean hair? Were there tourist markers on us somewhere? Was he just talking to Chuckie and referring to me as "those?"

"Huh?"

"You can't bring those beers in here."

What kind of Vegas establishment won't allow you to enter with beer? "Okay, we'll be right out front killing these." We were committed to playing foos.

We chugged the beers and reentered. It was a musky looking hole in the wall sparsely populated by what seemed to be locals. There were foosball tables, though, so we ponied up the $5 cover and entered. We had polished off our beers before we were permitted entrance, and the rule is to procure beer prior to foos, so we went to the bar. And, we waited. And, we waited. What the Hell!? I could count the number of people in the place on one hand. Whose teeth do we have to pull around here to get a pair of beers? Finally, some little Mexican hussie found her way to the money waving dudes.

After obtaining our beverages and spending 15 minutes hunting around for the camouflaged change machine, we were ready to get our game on.

"J$, there's no place to insert quarters into this table."

The Universe was truly testing our foos resolve.

"Let's go ask that guy over there what's up; he seems to be fashioned as some kind of employee."

We were instructed that the $5 cover included unlimited foos playing (great!), and he handed us a cup of balls. We were ready to go.

"J$," Chuckie truly looked as if he had lost his will or his mind. "The damn table is not returning the balls after we score."

"What the fuck?"

After some banging and shaking of the table, we realized that this was the Twilight Zone of foos.

Follow your better judgement and leave, turn to page 31.

Find a Pinkies employee and demand the foos to be fixed, turn to page 37.

"Hey, buddy, your foosball table is all kinds of busted." There was no diverting us from our foos ways.

The elder gentleman who barred our initial entrance came over and tinkered with the table. "Fellas," he said.

"Yea."

"See this? You need to push this in to get the balls to return." He pushed the metal tab, and we heard the satisfying sound of eight foosballs dropping into the staging area.

Apparently, our synaptic pathways were still in repair from the past two days.

The foos was on! In an unprecedented display of dominance, Chuckie whipped me five games straight.

"Goddamnit, Chuckie, no one is that lucky."

I went to get another round of frosty delight and piss. Upon my return, I found Chuckie talking to some dorky looking dude that I had noticed watching us earlier. It turns out that this dude was a member of the Vegas Foos Club that would be meeting at Pinkies that evening.

"You guys want to play?" he asks.

"Do you have a partner?"

"No, I'll play you guys two on one."

Let me point out that, in my opinion, given sufficiently skilled foos-ers, two on one gives very, very little advantage to either side.

We beat the guy 5-2 the first game, lost the second 3-5, and won the third, again, 5-2. (The second was a fluke as we were playing bar rules which allows slop; though, the guy did have a nice Snake Shot.)

"Hey," the local foos-dude exclaimed after getting polished by us. "Did you guys know The Foosball Tournament of the Universe is going on right now in the Riviera?"

"No shit."

"Yea, they have something to the order of 97 foosball tables setup and big screen TV's projecting overhead views of the big games."

Stay at Pinkies and wait for the local foos cronies to show up, turn to page 41.

Go to The Foosball Championship of the Universe, turn to page 43.

Off to the Riviera, we go! Besides, why would the local foos-ers be going to Pinkies with the tourny going on? What kind of foos-ers were these?

It was being held in one of the huge banquet halls of the casino , and, I shit you not, there were rows and rows and rows of Tornado foosball tables. The drinking, the gambling, the hot cocktail girlies, the Vegas; and now it even had the foos -- the only way this could get any better is if two Vettes were sitting outside waiting for Chuckie and me.

"Do you wanna play?"

"I think that the tables are just for people in the tourny."

"Fuck that! Look, that table is open. How can we not play at The Foosball Tournament of the Universe?"

"All right, it's on!"

And, in another unprecedented occurrence, I beat Chuckie soundly in the first game.

"Fuck that, we're playing again."

Chuckie stumbles and faulters again in the wake of J$'s onslaught of foos prowess.

"Again!"

In the end, I destroy Chuckie 3 out of 4 games at The Foosball Tournament of the Universe. What can I say, I respond well to pressure. (Chuckie will be sure to point out that the one game he did manage to win, he won 5 to 1.)

After fulfilling our foos needs and grabbing two "We Were at The Foosball Tournament of the Universe" shirts (which I ended up losing in a subsequent bar), we were off again.

If you want to rejoin the monkeys, turn to page 47.

If you want to walk towards the large phallic object in the distance, turn to page 53.

After some hoofing it (damn tall objects always appearing closer than they are), we ended up at the Stratosphere with the immense desire for sustenance and to spit from the top of this structure. Unfortunately, the line for the elevators was long; really long; more than one beer long.

Wait in line to go up to a place that is all glassed in so you cannot even spit out of it if you wanted to, turn to page 59.

Regroup, turn to page 61.

Lord knows, we were not about to stand in line empty handed and thirsty just because they did not locate a bar directly next to the line. We headed out to regroup with the monkeys. But, that's another story...

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