Ok, so Saturday (April 5th) on my way back home from Rock Band at Richard's (By the way I love playing the drums on that game.) I get a phone call from Justin Bain. He's one of my good friends from college in Twin Falls (there were some fun times I'll tell you about them sometime...) and his best friend Josh Friebos (I'm sure this probably isn't the right spelling but to tell you the truth I don't think I have ever known how to spell it...), who also is a good college friend, was getting married in Las Vegas on Monday the 7th and they were driving down to Vegas for it. His brother Jared and long time friend from Oregon Brandon Young were going with him. It didn't take much to convince me to go - Vegas is only about 4 hours away and I don't get to see them very often since they live in Oregon. I left on Sunday at around 11 am and got there at about 3:30. The boys got there at 5:30 am and couldn't check into the hotel room until noon, so they had to kill time until they could sleep (which ended up only being an hours worth). When I got there we went and got 2 cases of beer and bottle of whiskey - Vegas is expensive and it's better to start drinking in your room before you go out. You save lots of money and time. If you had to wait for the cocktail waitresses to bring you drinks while you were gambling you would still be sober and down at least $50 if not more.
So we start drinking and then talk the soon to be newlyweds to go out with us while they are "still single." We had to get the marriage license down in Fremont Street, so the 4 of us just hopped a cab and went down there. By the way if you are planning on getting married in Vegas the place to get the marriage licenses is open until midnight. Just an FYI... So by now I am already on my way to being drunk and then we wander down to Fremont Street and Josh buys us drinks. He got Jennifer (his fiance) a small drink and himself and Justin those huge plastic football beers that are about 5 beers in them. I was asked if I wanted a smaller drink like Jennifer and I said "I'll take one of the footballs." If you don't know me by now I can drink w/ the best of them. Although, looking back I probably should have had the smaller one since I didn't have any food in my system from 1 pm on and all I was doing was drinking. The guys played some blackjack and Jennifer and I did a little bonding. Not much as I was getting drunker and I think so was she. It starts to get a little fuzzy around there. Looking at the pictures I took (that I don't remember taking by the way...) we did some walking around Fremont. We ended up in The Plaza and they decided to stop at McDonalds. I wandered off to the bathroom and almost got lost getting back. I think my good sense of direction mixed w/ the fact that I had stayed there before saved me from wandering around for hours. I don't like McDonalds so I didn't eat. We headed back to Excalibur (the hotel we were staying at) and the the cab driver was trying to say something about worrying he would get into trouble for taking us from Fremont to the strip. It seemed like a bunch of bull shit to me and I was already drunk so I stopped listening to him. We visited Josh and Jennifer's room and then I went back to ours and passed out on the couch. Everyone else went out and gambled. Apparently Justin, Jared and Brandon went to Coyote Ugly in New York, New York and almost lost each other. Oh, by the way Jared and Brandon went with one of Brandon's friends that lives in Vegas when we went to Fremont St. FYI.
I was hung over and throwing up every hour or so I'm pretty sure because I didn't have any food in my system. So we took our time getting ready. We should have checked out at noon, but by the time we got motivated it was noon. The boys were planning on leaving right after the wedding because Brandon had a statistics class at 9am on Tuesday and they had a long drive back to Oregon ahead of them. I was going to leave when they did since only Josh and Jennifer and Josh's parents would be left. Plus I needed to be back for work on Tues. Well, Sunday night Josh and the rest of us talked Brandon into skipping his class and sticking around. I also helped the cause that he won $1,500 at a slot machine on Sunday afternoon. So they payed for another night for the room and we got something to eat (well they did my stomach was still a little strange so I had half a bagel, some Sierra Mist, and a few breadsticks to tide me over. We were going to take a taxi to the chapel (Graceland wedding chapel) since we didn't really know where it was, but when we were waiting for the taxi the bride & groom and his parents showed up w/ the limo and we got to ride that over. The driver was horrible and kept slamming on the gas then the break over and over, so I started getting motion sickness on top of already being hung over. We get there and the ceremony was really short. We took some pictures outside the chapel including some fun ones of Josh dragging Jennifer into the chapel and one of the guys carrying Josh towards the chapel. Then it was back to Excalibur for a toast to the couple in Dick's Last Resort in the casino. It's this restaurant/bar where the job of the waiters and waitresses is to give you a hard time no matter what and that includes being a little rude and sassy. We just wanted a drink and we got attitude from this waitress who said no one was going to wait on us and if we wanted a drink we were going to have to get up and get it ourselves from the bar. Josh's dad made a comment to her that Brandon didn't think she was lively enough (to embarrass him) and she made a point every time she passed our table to do something to him. Whether it was to shout "stop looking at me as if I were naked" or to walk up behind him and dance seductively behind his back. I had a beer because I was feeling better, but after I finished it I decided it would be my last for the night because it made me feel worse. The boys and I decided to hit the pool while the newlyweds and Josh's parents went to the jousting dinner show. We got to the pool and found a place to lay out and discovered that only one of the 4 pools was open (it was the smaller of the pools and had lots of kids in it) and that the pool area was closing in 5 minutes. Apparently they didn't have enough life guards on duty, so they had to close the pool at 6 pm. What?????? The guys continued drinking and tried to get me involved, but I was just starting to feel better and I was still planning on leaving around 9 or 10, so I didn't. I finally gambled a little bit at a video poker game and then a few hands of Blackjack before Brandon and I ended up taking the empty souvenir cups back up to the room. I decided it would be better if I left in the morning after some sleep then to leave late and possibly fall asleep on the way. Brandon knew that Jared and Justin would be drinking and gambling most of the night and that he would be the one driving, so we decided to go to sleep around 1 am. Justin came stumbling into the room before we fell asleep bummed that he was out of money and still wanted to gamble. Brandon gave him a little money and he wandered back to the casino.
Here's where the story gets to the crazy part...
A few hours later both Brandon and I were asleep and the door opened and I heard a woman's voice and looked up half asleep to see a woman and Justin talking at the window. I realized that Justin had brought a girl back and didn't want to hear them making out or whatever and went back to sleep. I then heard a door close and looked up to see if they were gone. The woman was on the other bed looking through her purse. It sounded like Justin was in the bathroom and she was sitting there waiting for him. I went rolled over and went back to sleep and a few minutes later I heard the woman say "I think she is awake I saw her moving around." talking about me. I thought that she was just a little shy and didn't want to do anything with someone else in the room. Then I heard them leave. Justin came barreling into the room a few minutes later and demanded us to help him because he "needed to know if those women were hookers or not." Brandon was completely out of it and I was still half asleep so we mumbled something like I'm sure they were and then went back to sleep. He left the room apparently looking for the women and we fell back asleep. Jared came into the room waking us up to help him get Justin, because he was passed out in the hall and Jared couldn't get him in himself. They were struggling to get him into the room and I decided to take some pictures because it was really funny. I got my camera which was on the floor and the case was a little open, but I didn't think anything of it because I was still groggy from just getting woken up. We got him in the room on the bed and Jared picked up a card and told Brandon he shouldn't leave his card lying on the floor. Brandon looked at it and said it wasn't his. It was mine, but I told them I didn't leave it there. That's when the three of us realized the real situation. We scrambled looking for our wallets/my purse. My purse was missing and Brandon's wallet was taken from his pants. Justin's wallet was also gone. Jared found my purse next to the other bed (the one the stupid bitch was sitting on and apparently looking through it when I looked over half asleep.) my little wallet gone. Brandon called his bank and discovered that they had withdrawn $1600 in the 30 minutes since they had ransacked our room. I went downstairs to try and find an Internet connection so I could get information on my credit card so I could call and cancel. Jared was talking to the security guards downstairs and explaining the situation. I was trying to tell them that I needed to call right away and cancel my cards, but all they wanted us to do was talk them through it. They didn't seem to understand that we needed to call right away. I finally told the woman security guard that the women had already started charging on the cards and that I needed an Internet connection to get the phone # to cancel my card right away. She sent me to the reception desk where one of the security guards stopped us and took us to the security office where they had all the phone numbers of the major card companies you could call. Brandon and Justin showed up a few minutes later (Brandon had to change and get Justin from the room where we left him.). We made calls and filled out the hotel statements. The Security guard asked if we wanted to make a formal statement w/ the police and Brandon said yes. He was the only one they got money from. Luckily, he had given Josh $1200 of his winnings to put in the safe they had in their room (they upgraded so they had an in-room safe) or that might have been taken as well. I canceled my credit card in time and they dropped my debit card. They got my account numbers because I had them written on a small piece of paper shoved in my little wallet, but I alerted the bank of the situation and so far they haven't accessed the accounts at all. I think they realized that they didn't get my debit card and couldn't use my credit card, so hopefully they just threw my little wallet away. The guys made a statement over the phone w/ the police after Justin pissed off the security guard by demanding to know what they were going to do. Whether they were going to use the security cameras to try and catch the two hussies that did this. The security guard wasn't answering any of his questions and Justin was drunk, so he just kept getting more and more rude to the guy because he wasn't trying at all to help us other than giving us the phone numbers to call and calling the police for us. We filed our probably useless reports with the casino and were on our way out of the security area. We were almost to the casino when Jared said something (I don't remember exactly what, but it was along the lines of stupid idiot or something like that.) to Justin and he snapped and elbowed Jared in the face. Jared punched Justin back and they scuffled a bit in the hallway. The security guard jumped in between them and Brandon grabbed Jared with his free hand (the other one was still holding his cell because he was still trying to cancel some card). They stopped immediately, but the stupid rent-a-cop security guard went overboard and slammed Justin to the ground and smashed his face into the floor. Justin and Jared were saying "he's not resisting, he's not resisting" but the rent-a-cop was hopped up on his power trip and he hand cuffed Justin and drug him back into the security room with hand cuff bars on the walls. I picked up one of Justin's flip-flops, his hat, and the security guys papers and took them into the room with them. While in there the "guy in charge" (who had a really cheesy looking suit on) came in and the rent-a-cop told him the situation (exaggerating the story) and cheesy suit said to drag Jared in there and to call Metro because they "weren't going to deal with this shit this morning." I was kicked out of the room and Brandon and I were left waiting in the cold courtyard for word of what was happening. A woman (besides the very first security people we spoke to, the only one that was actually being nice to us and treating us like we should have been treated given how the whole situation began) told us there was no sense in sitting out there being cold since they didn't know when the Cops would actually be getting there and if they needed a statement or to talk to us they would call up to the room. We tried to get a little more sleep in the room. I was planning on leaving at 6:30 a.m. and we got back to the room at 5:30 a.m. Brandon was worried that the women would get the valet ticket out of Justin's wallet and take the car, so he called and luckily they hadn't thought of that yet. We couldn't sleep at all and finally Jared got back up to the room at 7 a.m. Justin had to go to jail for a minimum of 12 hours and since they were related it was going to be a domestic battery charge. I had to leave in order to get back to work in time, so I left them there to try and sleep. I got back to my apartment just in time to take a quick shower and leave for work. I was planning on going to a Clippers game with Sarah & Rod, but given the circumstances and how tired I was I opted to go home after work and sleep.
I got a call on Wednesday around 6 p.m. from Justin. The jail didn't release him until 4 a.m. on Wednesday morning because they held him 12 hours from when bail was posted (his dad had to wire $3,000 to him). They left as soon as he got out and headed back. I guess Brandon and Jared slept in the car across the street from the jail. Probably because they didn't want to spend any of the money they did have left and also they probably didn't know when he was getting out since Justin couldn't call them from jail. The only phones in there could call local numbers collect and he didn't know any way to contact them.
So we start drinking and then talk the soon to be newlyweds to go out with us while they are "still single." We had to get the marriage license down in Fremont Street, so the 4 of us just hopped a cab and went down there. By the way if you are planning on getting married in Vegas the place to get the marriage licenses is open until midnight. Just an FYI... So by now I am already on my way to being drunk and then we wander down to Fremont Street and Josh buys us drinks. He got Jennifer (his fiance) a small drink and himself and Justin those huge plastic football beers that are about 5 beers in them. I was asked if I wanted a smaller drink like Jennifer and I said "I'll take one of the footballs." If you don't know me by now I can drink w/ the best of them. Although, looking back I probably should have had the smaller one since I didn't have any food in my system from 1 pm on and all I was doing was drinking. The guys played some blackjack and Jennifer and I did a little bonding. Not much as I was getting drunker and I think so was she. It starts to get a little fuzzy around there. Looking at the pictures I took (that I don't remember taking by the way...) we did some walking around Fremont. We ended up in The Plaza and they decided to stop at McDonalds. I wandered off to the bathroom and almost got lost getting back. I think my good sense of direction mixed w/ the fact that I had stayed there before saved me from wandering around for hours. I don't like McDonalds so I didn't eat. We headed back to Excalibur (the hotel we were staying at) and the the cab driver was trying to say something about worrying he would get into trouble for taking us from Fremont to the strip. It seemed like a bunch of bull shit to me and I was already drunk so I stopped listening to him. We visited Josh and Jennifer's room and then I went back to ours and passed out on the couch. Everyone else went out and gambled. Apparently Justin, Jared and Brandon went to Coyote Ugly in New York, New York and almost lost each other. Oh, by the way Jared and Brandon went with one of Brandon's friends that lives in Vegas when we went to Fremont St. FYI.
I was hung over and throwing up every hour or so I'm pretty sure because I didn't have any food in my system. So we took our time getting ready. We should have checked out at noon, but by the time we got motivated it was noon. The boys were planning on leaving right after the wedding because Brandon had a statistics class at 9am on Tuesday and they had a long drive back to Oregon ahead of them. I was going to leave when they did since only Josh and Jennifer and Josh's parents would be left. Plus I needed to be back for work on Tues. Well, Sunday night Josh and the rest of us talked Brandon into skipping his class and sticking around. I also helped the cause that he won $1,500 at a slot machine on Sunday afternoon. So they payed for another night for the room and we got something to eat (well they did my stomach was still a little strange so I had half a bagel, some Sierra Mist, and a few breadsticks to tide me over. We were going to take a taxi to the chapel (Graceland wedding chapel) since we didn't really know where it was, but when we were waiting for the taxi the bride & groom and his parents showed up w/ the limo and we got to ride that over. The driver was horrible and kept slamming on the gas then the break over and over, so I started getting motion sickness on top of already being hung over. We get there and the ceremony was really short. We took some pictures outside the chapel including some fun ones of Josh dragging Jennifer into the chapel and one of the guys carrying Josh towards the chapel. Then it was back to Excalibur for a toast to the couple in Dick's Last Resort in the casino. It's this restaurant/bar where the job of the waiters and waitresses is to give you a hard time no matter what and that includes being a little rude and sassy. We just wanted a drink and we got attitude from this waitress who said no one was going to wait on us and if we wanted a drink we were going to have to get up and get it ourselves from the bar. Josh's dad made a comment to her that Brandon didn't think she was lively enough (to embarrass him) and she made a point every time she passed our table to do something to him. Whether it was to shout "stop looking at me as if I were naked" or to walk up behind him and dance seductively behind his back. I had a beer because I was feeling better, but after I finished it I decided it would be my last for the night because it made me feel worse. The boys and I decided to hit the pool while the newlyweds and Josh's parents went to the jousting dinner show. We got to the pool and found a place to lay out and discovered that only one of the 4 pools was open (it was the smaller of the pools and had lots of kids in it) and that the pool area was closing in 5 minutes. Apparently they didn't have enough life guards on duty, so they had to close the pool at 6 pm. What?????? The guys continued drinking and tried to get me involved, but I was just starting to feel better and I was still planning on leaving around 9 or 10, so I didn't. I finally gambled a little bit at a video poker game and then a few hands of Blackjack before Brandon and I ended up taking the empty souvenir cups back up to the room. I decided it would be better if I left in the morning after some sleep then to leave late and possibly fall asleep on the way. Brandon knew that Jared and Justin would be drinking and gambling most of the night and that he would be the one driving, so we decided to go to sleep around 1 am. Justin came stumbling into the room before we fell asleep bummed that he was out of money and still wanted to gamble. Brandon gave him a little money and he wandered back to the casino.
Here's where the story gets to the crazy part...
A few hours later both Brandon and I were asleep and the door opened and I heard a woman's voice and looked up half asleep to see a woman and Justin talking at the window. I realized that Justin had brought a girl back and didn't want to hear them making out or whatever and went back to sleep. I then heard a door close and looked up to see if they were gone. The woman was on the other bed looking through her purse. It sounded like Justin was in the bathroom and she was sitting there waiting for him. I went rolled over and went back to sleep and a few minutes later I heard the woman say "I think she is awake I saw her moving around." talking about me. I thought that she was just a little shy and didn't want to do anything with someone else in the room. Then I heard them leave. Justin came barreling into the room a few minutes later and demanded us to help him because he "needed to know if those women were hookers or not." Brandon was completely out of it and I was still half asleep so we mumbled something like I'm sure they were and then went back to sleep. He left the room apparently looking for the women and we fell back asleep. Jared came into the room waking us up to help him get Justin, because he was passed out in the hall and Jared couldn't get him in himself. They were struggling to get him into the room and I decided to take some pictures because it was really funny. I got my camera which was on the floor and the case was a little open, but I didn't think anything of it because I was still groggy from just getting woken up. We got him in the room on the bed and Jared picked up a card and told Brandon he shouldn't leave his card lying on the floor. Brandon looked at it and said it wasn't his. It was mine, but I told them I didn't leave it there. That's when the three of us realized the real situation. We scrambled looking for our wallets/my purse. My purse was missing and Brandon's wallet was taken from his pants. Justin's wallet was also gone. Jared found my purse next to the other bed (the one the stupid bitch was sitting on and apparently looking through it when I looked over half asleep.) my little wallet gone. Brandon called his bank and discovered that they had withdrawn $1600 in the 30 minutes since they had ransacked our room. I went downstairs to try and find an Internet connection so I could get information on my credit card so I could call and cancel. Jared was talking to the security guards downstairs and explaining the situation. I was trying to tell them that I needed to call right away and cancel my cards, but all they wanted us to do was talk them through it. They didn't seem to understand that we needed to call right away. I finally told the woman security guard that the women had already started charging on the cards and that I needed an Internet connection to get the phone # to cancel my card right away. She sent me to the reception desk where one of the security guards stopped us and took us to the security office where they had all the phone numbers of the major card companies you could call. Brandon and Justin showed up a few minutes later (Brandon had to change and get Justin from the room where we left him.). We made calls and filled out the hotel statements. The Security guard asked if we wanted to make a formal statement w/ the police and Brandon said yes. He was the only one they got money from. Luckily, he had given Josh $1200 of his winnings to put in the safe they had in their room (they upgraded so they had an in-room safe) or that might have been taken as well. I canceled my credit card in time and they dropped my debit card. They got my account numbers because I had them written on a small piece of paper shoved in my little wallet, but I alerted the bank of the situation and so far they haven't accessed the accounts at all. I think they realized that they didn't get my debit card and couldn't use my credit card, so hopefully they just threw my little wallet away. The guys made a statement over the phone w/ the police after Justin pissed off the security guard by demanding to know what they were going to do. Whether they were going to use the security cameras to try and catch the two hussies that did this. The security guard wasn't answering any of his questions and Justin was drunk, so he just kept getting more and more rude to the guy because he wasn't trying at all to help us other than giving us the phone numbers to call and calling the police for us. We filed our probably useless reports with the casino and were on our way out of the security area. We were almost to the casino when Jared said something (I don't remember exactly what, but it was along the lines of stupid idiot or something like that.) to Justin and he snapped and elbowed Jared in the face. Jared punched Justin back and they scuffled a bit in the hallway. The security guard jumped in between them and Brandon grabbed Jared with his free hand (the other one was still holding his cell because he was still trying to cancel some card). They stopped immediately, but the stupid rent-a-cop security guard went overboard and slammed Justin to the ground and smashed his face into the floor. Justin and Jared were saying "he's not resisting, he's not resisting" but the rent-a-cop was hopped up on his power trip and he hand cuffed Justin and drug him back into the security room with hand cuff bars on the walls. I picked up one of Justin's flip-flops, his hat, and the security guys papers and took them into the room with them. While in there the "guy in charge" (who had a really cheesy looking suit on) came in and the rent-a-cop told him the situation (exaggerating the story) and cheesy suit said to drag Jared in there and to call Metro because they "weren't going to deal with this shit this morning." I was kicked out of the room and Brandon and I were left waiting in the cold courtyard for word of what was happening. A woman (besides the very first security people we spoke to, the only one that was actually being nice to us and treating us like we should have been treated given how the whole situation began) told us there was no sense in sitting out there being cold since they didn't know when the Cops would actually be getting there and if they needed a statement or to talk to us they would call up to the room. We tried to get a little more sleep in the room. I was planning on leaving at 6:30 a.m. and we got back to the room at 5:30 a.m. Brandon was worried that the women would get the valet ticket out of Justin's wallet and take the car, so he called and luckily they hadn't thought of that yet. We couldn't sleep at all and finally Jared got back up to the room at 7 a.m. Justin had to go to jail for a minimum of 12 hours and since they were related it was going to be a domestic battery charge. I had to leave in order to get back to work in time, so I left them there to try and sleep. I got back to my apartment just in time to take a quick shower and leave for work. I was planning on going to a Clippers game with Sarah & Rod, but given the circumstances and how tired I was I opted to go home after work and sleep.
I got a call on Wednesday around 6 p.m. from Justin. The jail didn't release him until 4 a.m. on Wednesday morning because they held him 12 hours from when bail was posted (his dad had to wire $3,000 to him). They left as soon as he got out and headed back. I guess Brandon and Jared slept in the car across the street from the jail. Probably because they didn't want to spend any of the money they did have left and also they probably didn't know when he was getting out since Justin couldn't call them from jail. The only phones in there could call local numbers collect and he didn't know any way to contact them.
I'm guessing that Brandon isn't as glad as he was on Monday afternoon/evening that he was staying and skipping his class. He ended up missing 4 classes and getting $1600 stolen out of his account. It's going to be awhile before the guys can look back at this and laugh. Especially since Justin and Jared have to go back in a month to appear in court. I was really lucky. I got to go to the bank on Monday when I got back into town and close my savings open new checking and savings accounts. I also went to the DMV and now have a new temp driver's license until I get a new one. I did get to take a new picture. Hopefully it will be lots better than the old one.
Overall, it was a fun adventure. Don't get me wrong I wouldn't get my card and my ID stolen again, but it could have been worse and now I have a great story to tell. After all, I didn't go to jail and none of us were physically hurt.
By the way, being in financial limbo and without a driver's license sucks! I only had those few checks without any of my information printed on them to use to get money and my old debit card that I couldn't use because I am waiting for those transactions to clear so I could cancel that account. I luckily have a passport so if I want to go out drinking I have some identification, but overall it sucks. Also, I have to wonder if there are some credit cards out there with my name on them that I didn't open...
Aaaahhh, life. It's never a dull moment. Well, I guess never always. I'm sure I can find some times when it was dull.
By the way, being in financial limbo and without a driver's license sucks! I only had those few checks without any of my information printed on them to use to get money and my old debit card that I couldn't use because I am waiting for those transactions to clear so I could cancel that account. I luckily have a passport so if I want to go out drinking I have some identification, but overall it sucks. Also, I have to wonder if there are some credit cards out there with my name on them that I didn't open...
Aaaahhh, life. It's never a dull moment. Well, I guess never always. I'm sure I can find some times when it was dull.
1 comment:
wow!
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