I Don't Gamble by Emily Dorsett

“Please, just stay in Vegas,” my mom said over the phone. She reserved a hotel room in Las Vegas on a Tuesday night because she didn’t want me up driving until morning. Caesar’s Palace. Thank u, Mom, I love u. I was 23, and Vegas is awesome especially when you’re me, by myself. I drove in late at night in my clunker, everything I owned squished into my backseat. The lights were fluorescent in contrast to the black hole I’d been staring into for the past 7 hours. I squinted, leaning forward to get a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower through my windshield. One of my pillows was shoved up against the window, blocking my side view. It looked like a marshmallow. I pulled up to the In & Out drive through and ordered a cheese burger, animal style, and a strawberry shake.

Sitting in my Buick and parked next to the In & Out, I ate my burger alone, in silence, in Las Vegas, Nevada. A little bit of ketchup landed on my shirt. Don’t feel sorry for me, this was my choice. With my back end pointing toward the strip, I looked forward into the darkness. Then, I remembered I read somewhere that the valleys around Vegas are where many people have died or gone missing or have been killed and disposed of. I scrunched up my plastic burger wrapping and stuffed it into my cup holder.

Caesar’s Palace wasn’t hard to find. I pulled into the parking lot and looked for the first open space. I walked around a little, afraid to leave my car because, well, it was everything I owned. I locked the doors, then unlocked them and tried to cover everything with a blanket. I realize I sound like a serial killer, but I promise I did come here to dispose of someone’s body. After repeating these steps three more times, I paused, finally accepted what it was and walked up to the Palace. They greeted me with roses and Champagne and endless applause.
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Check in was easy. I grabbed my bag and walked through the slot machines, wandering around until I found the elevator. I thought about how, like, what if I died tonight. Alone in a Vegas hotel room, wearing only socks. What a shitty ending to the story. Before I even do anything cool, I trip and hit my head on the night stand. And as I’m lying there, bleeding out...I realize I’m wearing nothing but socks and a pearl necklace—my hearse full of dead bodies, just chilling in the lot. I fucking hope no one finds my vibrator. 

I pressed the button for the 8th floor and pretended I was a rich person wearing better clothes than my Gap sweatshirt. My diamond bracelet was really my hair tie, but the entire scenario seemed so ironic to me that I, an actual grandma, would even be there. I said, “Fuck it. I’m rich.”

Really the whole night was just boring. I got to my room and went to bed almost right away. It’s funny how one minute you’re packing up to leave everything you know in this momentous way, and the next, you’re in a hotel room alone in Vegas for a long enough amount of time that you actually start to look into yourself. Like, you think things in your head. Like, on an existential level. You think things in your head and wonder why you thought them. Then, you realize you just said something out loud, to yourself.

I left early the next morning around 6am and thought, what a waste—that I, of all people, would party that hard in Vegaaaasssss, yeeeeaaaaaa. But, regardless of what you do there, Vegas does something to you. I pulled into Starbucks, got my coffee, buried the bodies and hit the road.

Author

Emily Dorsett has been with It's Personal, LLC since 2017. She has been writing quirky, honest, pieces for the past two years and we are always pleasantly surprised by what she is going to say... Aren't you excited to hear what she has to say?!