Young and naive in Las Vegas

In 2004 I went to Las Vegas for the first time. As a magician specialised in gambling and cheating related magic, I felt it would be awesome if I could say I was trained in Las Vegas. The dealer school website stated the course would take five weeks, so a booked a trip for a little over five weeks.

Since I just finished university, my budget wasn't to big. I certainly couldn't afford to stay in a proper hotel for that amount of time. So budget suites it was. I stayed at the location right behind the then still standing Stardust, which allowed me to walk to both the dealerschool and the strip. In theory at least. Walking to the dealerschool turned out to be quite a task in the July heat. So I did what any Dutch man would do: I bought a bicycle (which allows for a story I will tell some other time).

After checking in at the budget suites a very friendly lady in her thirties approached me for some small talk. Where did I come from, how long did I stay, what apartment did I stay and so on. A very nice lady indeed. I did think she was a bit skinny though.

After doing some groceries the phone in my apartment rang. It turned out to be the friendly lady from before. She started another nice chat and after a while she asked if she could come by. Sure, why not, right? A little while later she arrived and I let her in. We had another nice chat. It didn't take long though before she asked if I maybe could give her $10. She had no money left and hadn't eaten all day. Since I myself had no idea if I would be able to make ends meet for the coming five weeks I refused. I did offer to make her a sandwich though.

She insisted she rather had the $10 and was even willing to give some sort of service of the oral type in return. I hadn't seen that coming. Told you I was naive back then. In the meantime, I had noticed that next to being skinny, her teeth weren't in the best shape either. So to put something in her mouth that I was particularly attached to didn't really appeal to me. Fortunately I wasn't really attached to the strawberry jelly sandwich I was preparing.

After I gave her the sandwich, it didn't take long before she had to leave. I don't even think she had one bite of the sandwich yet. The following five weeks I occasionally saw her at the compound, but she never spoke to me again. I guess she just didn't like strawberry jelly.