Anyhow, it was a fun trip and, as always, a time to remember. Also, I’m all about the “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” mentality, however, some things are meant to be shared (just don’t ask me to share my bag of goldfish crackers). I cleared this story with my hubby before I posted, because I wanted to make sure it was okay with him if I talked about this one night in particular, in Vegas, dead of night (well, there’s really no dead of night in Vegas, so lets just say it was the wee hours of the morning), when I was shook all night long…
It was about three in the morning, and we had just gone to sleep. Visions of clanging slot machines were dancing in my head when suddenly, I was jolted awake by a tremendous rumbling/roaring/booming sound immediately followed by trembling/rocking/swaying motion. Now, as much as I would love to say it was action in the next room – it wasn’t. Paul and I were shocked awake at the exact same moment, however, we each had completely different reactions. His was somewhat cool and collected as he strolls over to the floor-to-ceiling 14th floor windows, throws open the blinds because he’s thinking, “If this is an apocalypse, I want a damn good view.” Really? In the mean time, we can hear tons of commotion up and down the hallways of the hotel and alarms are going off at an astoundingly shrieking decibel. No reason to panic, right?
Hell yes! Picture this, I immediately spread-eagle myself flat on top of the bed (since I can’t fit underneath), throw every cover, bedspread, sheet, pillow, towel and suitcase (I was/am delusional - like any of these are going to help save me if the building goes down) within arms-length on top of my covering-the-whole-bed body and scream louder than any damn siren that the building is going down and we’re all going to die! Paul retorts that I’m being a tad dramatic (me? never) and that it is just an earthquake and it should be over soon. Excuse me? I’m from the flippin’ Midwest (so is he, so why is he Mr. Know-it-all?) and we do not have earthquakes there (at least not any that can make a building sway and move like a belly dancer). Not to mention, people are in clear panic mode, so I was not the only one freaking out (but possibly, the only one screaming my sins so that God would forgive me before I died – BTW, I never did finish).
Seriously, in between shouting my transgressions, I was yelling that there was NO possible way that this building could move like this and NOT go down. I’m no fucking engineer, but when a building’s windows are almost parallel to the ground, you should probably start saying your prayers. At this point, Paul is on top of me shielding my body with his (I kind of made him since I figured when they found our bodies in the rubble, at least they’d know we were together – maybe). Paul said we should probably try and exit like it seemed most people were doing, but I was too paralyzed (except my mouth – that never happens), to move from the bed. Besides, where were all of those people going? Like standing outside the building when it topples is going to fare better? Christ, I’ll take my chances (gambler that I am) in a nice cozy, rocking bed before I take cover under a $4.95 all-you-can-eat buffet sign (or worse, next to one of those hooker/call girl/prostitute/it’s-all-the-same pamphlet-shoving-no-English-speaking-desperate-need-of-a-shower dudes).
What seemed like hours, was probably only a couple of minutes – but the rumbling, roaring, swaying, and shaking finally ended (oh, and the earthquake did, too). I gave Paul permission to get off of me and he turned on the TV to find out what the hell just happened. Boy, those news people work faster than Paris Hilton at a cocktail party. It was already on the air that Vegas had been hit by a magnitude 7.0 quake! Soon following, they were live on the strip and interviewing people about their earthquake experience. One lady was on top of the Stratosphere Tower when it hit (now that would have surely sent me over the edge – literally). Some people were already packing their bags and getting out of town (wusses). Seriously, it would take more than a near-death experience to get me to cut my Vegas trip short.
The aftershocks from the quake kept coming through the night and I never did get any sleep. Each time one hit, my shrieks lessened a bit until eventually, they were just faint whimpers (once I was convinced the building was made of rubber and could bend like Stretch Armstrong only to spring back into place). But really, who the hell goes to Vegas to sleep anyhow?
