Flashback - #1 Part II

A black town car picked me up around 5am and I was about to pass out from anxiety.  I do not fly well.  The entire night before, thoughts of taking several Xanax to help quell the anxiousness did cross my mind.  We swung by to pick up another colleague and arrived at the airport:  Me a total wreck and thinking of drinking my way through the flight even though we had a meeting later that day and my colleague toting every magazine under the sun whose main demographic were females aged 11-18 (I believe teen marketing was one of her duties at the time). 

I did not imbibe and did not ingest any pharmaceuticals but managed to arrive in Las Vegas looking only a little frazzled.  It was hot.  I can't remember exactly how we got to the hotel (taxi, car service?) but we did get there.  It was hot.  Attempting to remember everyone's arrival time into the Inferno of Sin was almost impossible due to my lack of sleep and preparedness.  Forgot. To. Print. Out. Schedule.  Also, it was hot. 

We were dropped off at the hotel, checked into our rooms and after a few whoops of joy at the huge suites and the, "I really don't have to share a room like in college?!" thoughts we called the rest of our team to gather for our meeting. 

The meeting was short that day, taking place in our manager's hotel suite (bigger than the regular suites we all had) and from what I remember we outlined objectives for the following year, I-don't-remember-all-of-it. 
 

Ok, time to go out!  Reservations were made for a famous sushi restaurant.  We went, ordered, drank, ordered some more.  I discovered I do not like sushi.  We drank more.

Our group then moved over to a bar that was draped in rich, purple velour.  The name of the bar escapes me, mostly because with only 4 hours of sleep and about 4 drinks in me I'd become oblivious to my location.  At one point I decided to no longer drink as it was late and not to mention the 9am meeting call time the following morning.  I was then told, "Oh, just get a drink just so you can hold it!"  Another cosmopolitan it was to be.  I was tired.  Around 11pm I had to call it quits and go to bed. 

The next morning we all stumbled into our manager's suite and manage to sit through the meeting the whole day.  I only remembering walking in and thinking, "THANK GOD there's coffee."  The day went something like, "Marketing objectives, goals, marketing ideas, new phones, more objectives, goals, can't-really-remember." 

That night we had reservations at an Italian restaurant located in the Venetian and it was beautiful.  Bottles of wine were ordered, appetizers and main courses.  It was wonderful and fully paid for, which made it even more wonderful. 

The rest of the night went something like this:  Went back to the purple velour bar, had cosmos, danced, crashed a corporate conference party going on in the next room, drank more cosmos, laughed at something hysterically, and at this point the evening become nebulous.  The events that took place after I decided to be "good" and go to bed, much to my colleagues' dismay, included our Italian waiter from the restaurant a nightclub with sand (???) and a missing co-worker.  I was glad I decided to go to bed.

The next morning we had a couple of stragglers to the meeting and we were all ravenous, heading straight for the bacon, eggs and coffee.  The missing co-worker arrived only a few minutes late and looked as if she had slept for hours.  Whew.  Our manager looked at us and I could tell he did not want to know about what happened the previous night but would somehow know once expense reports would start coming his way to be signed.  That day we only met until around noon as we would all start to fly back to our home cities. 

On the plane ride back I slept.  My thoughts didn't drift to profound revelations of the Inferno of Sin or anything like that.  I just slept.