This is another one of those stories that I hesitate to write because I’m not sure I can do it justice but I was reminded of it again recently so I will give it a whirl.
Three of us were in Las Vegas for work. We were only there for a few busy days so we wanted to make the most of our down time. We were staying at the Stratosphere and a bit off the beaten path but we figured walking would do us good. We made plans to meet for dinner one night and then we were going to walk the strip to see what trouble we could find.
Dinner went well and we started our trek down the strip when Maggie had a blow-out in one of her more than worn walking shoes. It was pointless to attempt to continue our walk because she was dragging a leg and the other two of us were laughing. We decided to take a cab to Caesars Palace to find a shoe store.
Bingo! A sporting goods store for a new pair of shoes was easily located. Jason and I weren’t there to shop so we supported our friend in her quest for a new set of tires. A lovely young man was helping her with her size eight and a half’s, try this, what about these and can I tie those for you? He really got into his groove when he realized she had a blow-out, nothing like a sure sale. He was bending down in front of her to tie her shoe when it happened.
She bent down a little to do something, maybe talk to him, maybe help him tie, I’m not sure. Rrrrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiippppppppppppppp. The sound was not only deafening in the small store but confusing as well. Which type of new blow-out was this? Gas or pants? From our vantage point, Jason and I could clearly see, and I mean CLEARLY see, that it was a complete denim failure in the cheek area and continuing down the leg. The young man helping her out was not quite so sure of the origin so he immediately looked up with huge eyes, stood up and proceeded to walk away from her.
After the initial shock of the sound and an awkward moment of silence, the laughter began. Not only did the laughter begin but the tears soon followed. All three of us had tears. Two of us from laughter, one of us from being embarrassed. When she started to cry that did not help our situation out AT ALL. As I was attempting to control myself, Jason crouched and hid in a circular rack of t-shirts to hide. The rack only hid him, not his uncontrollable laugher.
I did my best to help her get the new tires on so we could get the hell out of the store, I feel as though I failed completely. I was attempting to hold in my laughter which never works without shoulders shaking, well, my whole body was pretty much convulsing. I could still hear Jason in the t-shirt rack sniffling and laughing and Maggie’s face was still bright red with tears in her eyes. Now, I’m not so heartless that I can’t be respectful of someone else’s discomfort but this was the exception, I could not see her point of being upset, other than one of her cheeks was more than peeking out of the back of her pants. At least she had underwear on. In turn, I couldn’t control myself and Jason was doing nothing to help me out.
We paid the lovely young man who still wasn’t sure what exactly had happened (I’m sure he realized once we walked out the door and he saw her pants, or lack thereof), gathered Jason out of the rack of t-shirts and headed out the door. What do we do now? I offered to change shirts with her, mine may have been a little longer. I should probably state here that longer really wasn’t going to help much, the rip was well beyond ‘longer’.
Jason and I wanted to check out the casino a bit and Maggie wasn’t quite up to it. We tried to convince her it wasn’t that bad through more laughter and more tears but she didn’t really believe us, I can’t imagine why. She was going back to our rooms in a cab to change her pants and she really wanted us to go with her. That wasn’t happening so she was now mad on top of everything else. We were still laughing more than we should have been.
As we got to the front door of Caesars there was some commotion going on so it was a bit tough to get through the sea of people, once outside we saw why it was like that. Celine Dion was just arriving. This did not make Maggie happy because of the severe rip in her pants. We watched as Celine and her husband drove up, got out of the car and made their way into the casino slowly. About that time, a cab showed up and the last words we heard Maggie speak before she got in was “great, now Celine Dion saw my ass!! Our laughter never really stopped that night.
To this day, Jason and I laugh about this incident, if one of us is having a bad day the mere mention of it puts us in a better mood. Maggie never did meet back up with us that night nor did she answer our phone calls. Just the other night Jason informed me he thinks that was the hardest he’s ever laughed in public and I agreed. I told him he was a coward for hiding in the t-shirt rack but we laughed about it for another ten minutes or so. He completely agrees he was a coward. The incident has way more longevity than her pants did.
Following Funny 