What happens in Vegas doesn’t always stay in Vegas
Vegas generally takes on a different meaning when you’re 38 than when you’re 22. And it certainly has a different vibe when you’re 38 going there with your wife as opposed to 22, and looking for trouble with your buddies (at least whatever your naive, deformed, perverted form of trouble is).
But my wife kicks ass. We both kick a lot of ass. And because of all that ass kicking that’s going on we just returned from one hell of a trip to Vegas. Jam packed into that 48 hours was: hangin’ with Sinbad, good expensive food, shopping, people watching, walks all over Vegas, drinking, drag-queen waitresses named Elizabeth, gambling, stealing roughly $20-25 worth of food from a hotel gym, some Louie V, seeing my wife messed up, more good food, more gambling, witnessing a flight attendant yelling at a chick in the bathroom, and lots of other inappropriate fun.
About the only thing missing from the weekend was for one of us to turn to the other one, and say “let’s head over to the Hard Rock and get you tatted up today!”
Except — one of us definitely did say that, and the other one of us said, “why the fuck not?”
I didn’t know it at the time, but this tattoo idea was actually born 18 years ago. I was a “dumas” 20 year old trying to figure out how to contribute to society, when I saw a film that changed my life permanently.
I became a better human being after seeing that movie. And the scene above would become a piece of me, burned into my soul for the rest of my life. I’m not sure how many people can claim a life altering event of that magnitude after seeing a movie (other than maybe something a tad less spiritual like impregnating your girlfriend while a movie happens to be playing in the background…leading to an eternal joke that makes her want to choke you with your own tongue every time she hears “hey babe, remember when I knocked you up that night while Tango & Cash was on? Remember?”)
So, recognizing over the years that I was forever changed after seeing that film, becoming a man who saw the hopefulness in things, and believing I had the ability to do things that I probably really didn’t — I decided to pay my permanent respects to that scene, and that message. So, the topper on the somewhat crazy Vegas weekend was deciding to go get tatted up, and doing so well under the legal limit (at the time). And there was no way this story would stay in Vegas.
hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things
