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I worked at the summit bar and grill at Northstar at Tahoe in 1999. Totally minimum wage. It was kind of rough.
On our way there, my car blew up about an hour and a half outside of Susanville California. We got towed there and ditched my car in a Wal-mart parking lot. We decided to keep on going. We packed all of our gear onto our backs and headed toward the highway and hitchhiked. We got picked up by these two banging girls! We were so stoked. They were going to take us all the way to Reno. We found out they were both 17 and that their fathers were the head dudes at the prison. Yep... the conversations ended right about there.
We get into Reno, catch a shuttle to Tahoe and get picked up at Ceasers Palace in Cal/Neva by my friends cousin. He sold us a tiny little hatch back for $400. We had originally planned on staying with my friends cousin that lived in south lake. That ended up turning into a couple of days so we had to find an alternative.
We decided to cruise up to Truckee to see if we could land a place. Just as we pulled into Truckee a woman in a Landcruiser hit us. It spun us around and I ended up with a cracked shoulder blade. We exchanged insurance information with the lady and my friend asked me what we should do. We saw all of these billboards for this greasy attorney and so I figured, "Lets call that guy."
He had us go to a clinic and get checked out and said that he would take care of dealing with our insurance company. His office became our address and phone number while we stayed in Tahoe. At the clinic they asked how much pain I was in. At that moment I didn't really feel much pain at all.
"Injuries like yours don't get painful for a couple days. Your insurance should cover these pain meds. Just in case, I'm going to give you enough for the next couple of months." the nurse said.
Almost every night for our trip we would go to sleep with a couple hardcore pain killers and 22 of malt liquor.
There was a severe housing shortage that year and we couldn't find a place to stay. We got kicked out of the hostle that we were staying at when the pervert that ran the place was naked and wasted started bitching about how we were late paying him. We explained when we moved in our pay schedule and on top of that, he was friends with our boss so he knew better, but he wouldn't back off. My friend read him the riot act and threatened to remove body parts if he didn't get off our fucking backs.
Next thing you know, we were camping out in our car behind the horse stables at the resort. One night it was so fucking freezing that we both woke up from our teeth chattering. We turned the car on for heat and the radio was on. "Good morning Lake Tahoe! It's 3:30 in the AM and the temp outside is 1."
The rad part was in the morning, we would have to take three ski lifts to get to work. By noon we were in t-shirts putting on sunscreen with an epic view of the lake.
About a week into the job the manager of the grill outside where I worked called in drunk and got shit canned and I was promoted to manager. All I did was pour beer and make sausage dogs. It was a beer for the customers... a beer for me... another beer for the customers... another beer for me... I started getting sick of eating sausages all the time so I networked with the guys in the cafeteria and started getting buffets alot. Word spread pretty quick and soon the lift guys were inviting us to parties and the instructors were trading us weed.
The guy that called in drunk called us one day and said that he was moving out of his condo and that we could stay there. The only hitch was that there was no electricity and no furniture. Laying down horizontal was soooooo nice after sleeping in the car.
We had a couple days off before New Years Eve. We decided to go catch the Duck game in Vegas and do the millennium there. We went straight to the old strip and they had these 32 ounce plastic footballs of well drinks. I had a couple. I got us back stage to the green room trailer at one of the stages. We feasted on the meat trays and were drinking the beers. The band guys that were there just got off stage. They started off being nice to us, but that quickly faded. They were all in their 50's and wearing leather pants with the gut hanging over. They managed to get a couple girls in there that were closer to our age. The girls decided that they wanted to talk to us instead of the old guys. This pissed the band guys off and they started belittling us.
They began to treat us with alot of disrespect, saying really mean things. If there wasn't so much food and booze, we just might have said something. Instead we sat there and angrily drank our beers and stuffed our faces. One of the guys said, "It's almost midnight, lets get out there." and they all took off.
I looked at my friend and said, "Those guys were the biggest fucking assholes." Ten minutes later we were walking through the security check points with a bass guitar of the main asshole and about six bottles of champagne. I put the bass in the car and headed back to where my friend was waiting with the champaign.
Just as I got back the count down started and when it reached one, we popped the champaign and I started kissing as many women as I could. The NYE song of the millennium at the old strip in Vegas was Stings, "Brand New Day."
We decided to go see if we could track down any hotel room parties. We got a tip from someone about a party at hotel on the main strip. At the hotel, security was checking for room keys at the elevators. I went up to the desk clerk and sweet talked them into giving me a souvenir room key as a memento of my great trip to Vegas.
I came back to my friend and said, "Were in!"
While I was at the desk, he had started up a conversation with this couple. They wanted to go check out the party really bad. The guy offered me $50 bucks if we could get them up there.
"No problem." I said.
We walk up to the elevators and the security guard wanted to check our key. I flashed it and said, "They are with us."
We got up to the party. It was like a huge banquet with a few open bars. My friend went straight for the shrimp and booze. I went to take care of getting taken care of for smuggling the couple up. The guy said thanks and that it meant alot and handed me a $10 bill. I looked at him and told him thats not what we agreed on.
He said, "Take it or leave it."
So I smashed him in the face with a vicious right cross. Next thing I know, I'm fighting off a hoard of people slowly backing my way to the door. My friend said he just found the jumbo shrimp and just got a rum and coke. He was just about to put the shrimp in his mouth as all hell broke loose. He looked up to see what was happening and he saw me fighting off a bunch of guys that were trying to beat the shit out of me. Someone grabbed him and said, "This guy was with him too!"
We made it out into the hallway and started running toward the elevator. Just then the elevator door opens and a shit ton of sheriffs deputies and Vegas cops come bursting out of the elevator with guns drawn. I pointed to the room we just came from and said, "Down there!" They were moving really carefully towards the chaos and we slipped into the elevator they just vacated. We got off a floor before the lobby and took the fire escape out a side door.
My friend said he was spent and was going to go back to the car. I told him I would meet him back in Tahoe.
I don't know why I said that, because he was holding onto the cash and all of our worldly possessions were in the car. I wandered around in search of a couple more parties...
Hours later, I was sitting at the base of the Statue of Liberty at the New York, New York casino with a deaf/mute midget eskimo that was dressed in a tuxedo and a top hat smoking my last cigarette.
Not having any idea how I was going to get home, I decided to hitchhike.
I ended up spending all day trying to get a ride out of Vegas. I had been kicked off the freeway by the cops a few times. I could see the "Leaving Las Vegas" sign. I was almost out of Vegas. Then I got pulled over.
He decided that because I had been told to get off the highway five or six times that I needed to go to jail... for hitchhiking.
Anyhow, this story goes on with me making friends with a Mexican mafia kid and being freaked out by our cell mates, eating breakfast with vicious criminals and them asking what I was in there for. I get booted out of jail take a couple buses to the outskirts of town to a truck stop and make my way back to Truckee where we have no jobs and I can't track down my friend. (He got arrested the following day too for some speeding tickets from a few years prior when we went to the Las Vegas Bowl to watch the Ducks kick the Air Forces asses) Whatever... so yeah.
2:08 AM
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