Report of event worth mentioning
Location: Video-game arcade, New York New York Hotel & Casino Las Vegas.
Key players: Fat man in replica New York Yankees jersey, shorts.
Background information: After driving from the Bay Area to Las Vegas (a 10-hour trip) and arriving in Vegas at midnight, a friend and I refuse to go to sleep. Nauseous and hallucinating from sleep deprivation, we fork out $12 each to ride the New York New York roller coaster at 10 am. In our mental state, the coaster ride barely registers as a thrill. Had we seen them, the novelty photos taken of the coaster passengers during the first big drop may well have shown us to be asleep. While exiting the coaster ride through the video arcade, however, we stumble upon a change machine with a gleaming mountain of $20 in unattended quarters in its coin tray. We grab a bucket and take the doubloons over to the Skee-Ball(TM) ramps. We score several hundred tickets.
Procedural complications leading to event: Neither my friend nor I have been in a video arcade in a decade. Arcades are very technologically advanced these days. For instance, one must first feed all game tickets into a machine that counts them and prints out a statement. This printed statement is what one must bring to the awards counter to claim your (assortment of) prize(s). Taking your tickets directly to the counter is a strict no-no.
Event in question: While waiting in line for prizes, raw Skee-Ball(TM) tickets in hand, my friend and I hear a sing-songy,
Friends-catch-phrasesque "Helloooooooo?"
We look over and see a fat man in a replica Yankees jersey and shorts. He is not in line. He is standing behind the line, surveying it for procedural errors. He is not an employee of New York New York Hotel & Casino. He has apparently taken it upon himself to become a vigilante information booth and regulator of prize-claiming.
"Uh... the ticket machines are over there." My friend and I then see the machines and start to walk towards them. "Hellooooooo??" the fat man repeats.
As we head towards the machines, the fat man rolls his eyes, and, to no one in particular, pinches his right thumb and index finger together, raises it to his lips and faux-inhales. In doing so, he is suggesting that my friend and I had been smoking marijuana cigarettes.
Insinuated fact: If a person is unaware of the tickets-for-prizes exchange procedure at a video arcade, that person is under the influence of narcotics.
Result of event: My friend and I decide we should go to sleep.
