What happens in Vegas...
I had been to Las Vegas a couple of times in the past. I never really had much fun there, so I was curious to determine if it was the company I was in or if I really just didn't care for the city. It was my turn to drive, and George had fallen asleep. For the past hour, I had been driving in silence. No music. No podcast. No Audiobook. Just thinking. Making lists in my head of everything I want to do in life and storing those lists in dark, hidden corners of my brain. As glimmers of city lights began to flash between dark mountains, I broke the silence, "I think I see it!" "Huh?" George awoke, confused. "I see Las Vegas," I repeated. A short while later, as the lights of the city came into full view, George exclaimed, "Hey, guess what? We can buy legal weed here!" "You're right! We should go check out a dispensary!" I said excitedly. It seemed a wild night was ahead.
We checked into our hotel, showered, changed out of our hiking clothes, then headed out to find adventure. Turns out most dispensaries aren't 24 hours, and there was only one that was open by the time we got into the city. It was totally different than I would have expected. I imagined cereal-looking boxes lining aisles for some reason. But as I should have guessed, T-shirts, koozies, and other swag lined the aisles, and consumables were behind glass countertops, where a budtender helped select products. Our tender was a small framed woman who looked maybe 22 or 23. "What are you guys looking for tonight?" she asked in a laid-back tone that you'd expect in a place that sells cannabis, be it ever so stereotypical. We had no idea what we were looking for, we didn't want to seem uncool, but we are so very uncool. So we went with the thing they probably hear all day every day, "Haven't really decided, what do you recommend?" She walked us through every type of product they had. She asked us a dozen questions we were utterly unprepared to answer, then recommended some candy—$ 25 for 10 gummy bears. We asked her how strong the effects would be. She said (and I quote), "I can eat a whole bag in one sitting, but I usually just take two or three, and I barely feel anything; it just makes me feel a little relaxed like I had a glass of wine."
We decided to eat some immediately since we were told it would take a while to kick in, and it was already past 10pm. I ate two because I guessed that someone who lives in a place where you can buy weed gummy bears at a store anytime you want probably has a higher tolerance than me, who does not. If two made our budtender feel like she had drunk a glass of wine, I would probably feel like I had drunk a bottle. On the other hand, George decided that since she was a petite woman and could handle a whole bag, he would start with four.
We hit the empty-for-Vegas streets headed for White Castle, a place we had both eaten before but never together. We ordered way too much food, then hobbled back to our room, dodging drunken revelers with our over-filled cherry cokes and giant bags of tiny burgers. It finally hit us that we were starving, and the luke-warm food tasted like ambrosia to us. Not yet feeling any effects of the gummy bears, George proposed a toast (with the tequila we still had) to an adventurous night; if only he knew.
By my third White Castle, I was beginning to feel that "glass of wine." Although it felt more like four top-shelf margaritas. I felt good, though. I was in the hotel room, pajamas on, eating cheeseburgers, and watching cartoons. I was super stoned, and it was perfectly legal—a perfect night!
Just as I was thinking these things, George looks at me, and in a very calm and steady voice, says, "Baby, I think I need to go to the hospital." I've always been someone who can handle emergency situations exceptionally well. Had I thought this was an actual emergency, I would have immediately been in the car driving to the hospital, or in the case of four margaritas, calling an ambulance. But he was calm and seemed perfectly fine, so I asked, "What's wrong?" "I'm dying." Did he mean in the sense that we are all technically dying? I didn't get it. He seemed fine. Before I could respond, he decided that he wasn't dying. He was fine, just paranoid. I focused back on Family Guy, and started dozing in my chair when suddenly, "Actually, I do need to go to the hospital, right now." "I don't think you need to go to the hospital; I think you're just really high; try to relax and fall asleep." "No," he said, "I think I took too many substances." A concerning statement.
"What else did you take?" I asked, now feeling a little anxious because, after all, I was high. "I had that Frappuccino earlier, that was full of caffeine, and then I took those four gummy bears and the shot of tequila." Whew! For a second there, I thought he was about to tell me he had purchased some meth-laced molly from a hooker, but it was clear that he genuinely did just need to relax and go to sleep. "You don't need to go to the hospital," I said gently but firmly. "You're just very, very stoned. I'm not calling an ambulance because you had a Frappuccino, a shot of tequila, and some weed. I promise you will be fine." He curled up on the bed, and I sat beside him to comfort him. "I need to go to the hospital, and you're just going to let me die," He murmured into his pillow. "I'm going to die of an overdose in a Las Vegas hotel room; how fucking typical." I patted him on the back and again calmly reassured him that everything would be okay. "Someone probably already called the police on us," he said as he lifted his head from the pillow. "Why would someone have called the police?" I asked, "We're in Nevada, where Frappuccinos, tequila, and weed are all legal." "Because I've been shouting about how I need to go to the hospital," he whimpered back. But he hadn't been shouting. He had been speaking calmly, barely above a whisper the whole time. "You haven't been shouting," I said. "I promise I would take you to the hospital if you really needed to go." He finally fell asleep in my arms around 4:30 am.
Just as I started to fall into a deep sleep, he sat up and said, "Aimee, we're here." I opened my eyes and realized we were in the Downtown Grand parking garage, the hotel we had reserved earlier during the drive. "We're going to have a fun night, baby," George said as he popped the trunk to get our bags. I couldn't believe I had dreampt the whole thing, but I felt refreshed and ready to find out what Las Vegas had in store for us!
