Written by: Dominick A. Miserandino Photography by: Margherita Miserandino
A trip to Vegas turns out to be a battle between a man, his mother-in-law and his gambling addict of a grandmother.
Day 2
We started the day by watching Grandma lose money quicker than a thief could have ever done to her. She can sit at a slot machine next to five other people, and 15 minutes later, they’re still gambling on their five dollars, but she’s already lost about 100 dollars.
To distract her from losing any more money, we went to see some other hotels, starting at Treasure Island, where she lost a good deal more of her money. Since she lost her money there we hit the road and went across the street to the Venetian.
This turned out to be a good idea and yet a bad one at the same time.
The bad part was that the Grand Canal is filled with so many shops that nearly exhausted and killed grandma. The good part was that it garnered us each five bucks and made La Madre happy.
She felt like she was back in Italy and kept walking around mumbling, "Nice-a."
As for the five bucks, we passed a polling place in the Venetian that offered us five dollars for our opinion. It took quite some time to translate the opinion for La Madre, but it was great that it saved us 30 minutes from Grandma losing money gambling.
"What good is five dollars? I came to win big," she said.
"Grandma, gambling is when you have a chance of winning. You seem to be pre-destined to lose money. I’m increasing your odds simply by taking away the time to gamble." I explained to her in a calming and completely unsarcastic manner.
To distract Grandma further, we nearly got arrested at the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum, which is located within the Venetian. They had an exhibit called A Century of Painting: From Renoir to Rothko. La Madre seemed to be quite interested in a Seurat, and it was only after I leaped across the room that we stopped her from trying to feel the bumps in the painting.
"This painting costs a few million dollars," I said in Italian.
"Oh mama mia!" was her typical and also ironically stereotypical reaction.
This was followed by more walking and preventing Grandma from gambling. On the way to the Monte Carlo, we stopped in the Casino Royale for free Margaritas, which I explained to Grandma was just like winning.
At the Monte Carlo, Grandma was surprisingly a bit over her budget, so we decided to save a buck or two by hitting the nickel poker machines.
"That’s not winning. Winning a dollar isn’t winning. It’s wasting your time," Grandma responded bitterly one more time.
Well, to distract her in other ways, we hit the Monte Carlo’s buffet, where I was quite happy to learn that they served sushi. A buffet with sushi is quite a good thing. Of all of the buffets that we went to, this was one of our favorites.
"Lotsa food. Good food," La Madre answered.
The Mirage at Night
As for Lance Burton, it wasn’t his regular show, but his Magic and Comedy All-Stars show that featured various acts from the strip and beyond. Actually, one act was Mac King, who was so good that we saw him again the next afternoon. For us, the highlight was definitely Lance, himself. All of the other acts had elements that were very impressive. In fact, impressive enough to buy tickets, but when Lance does something, he’s so far ahead of the crowd that it’s not a fair comparison to be on the same stage with him. He hosted the show and did a few tricks, but following Lance Burton must be pretty tough.
