So here's the deal:

Santa asked me what I wanted for Christmas.
I told Santa, "A tequila jag in Las Vegas would be a real hoot."

It was December 8th, we'd just gotten home from Oceans 11.
I was jonesing real bad on some Vegas envy.
I went thru some e-mail, and found a note from Shannon.

Shannon asked if he could buy me a drink.
All things considered, ...all things being equal, ...I replied "Yes."
Soon after that, I got another message saying he wanted to drink some tequila with me at The Venetian.
Again, with nothing to lose, ...I replied "OK."

The next note said "Check your PayPal account."
I did, and I found the biggest e-transaction to come my way, so far.

...rarely am I speechless.

He asked if that amount would cover my expenses, and I answered that it would, so we agreed
on a date and a time and a location ...so we're going to Las Vegas to drink some tequila.

But here's the cool part:
Mrs. BartCop pointed out that Shannon could be a girl.

ha ha

Last thing I need is women flying me to Vegas do drink tequila!!!!!!

Let me say right here, I sure hope this doesn't turn into some kind of tradition
where someone wants to fly us ti Sin City for a tequila-tasting excursion.

My next thought was geographics, so I immediately opened negotiations with four casinos.

First, I called the Taqueria Cononita
I spoke with the bar manager. The conversation was most disturbing.
I asked how many kinds of tequila she had and she said, "About 60."
That'll do, but then I asked her if she was all stockeded up on Chinaco Anejo.

Are you sitting down?

She told me, "Not ...at this time, we rotate the lesser tequilas."

ha ha

Chinaco Anejo, ...a lesser tequila?

So, I'm like, "S'cuse me, Ma'am, but if Chinaco Anejo is a lesser, could I taste some morer?"

Then she proceeded to tell me about the fine plata tequilas she had at her bar.

Plata?

Sidebar: Plata is another name for "silver" or "young" or "new."
Like whiskey, you can drink tequila the day it's distilled or you can wait a few years
and drink the artist's fine work after it's rested in oak barrels with a hint of pear, apple,
wildflowers, spices, chocolates, and all manners of juicy fruit flavors.

Sidebar in a Sidebar:Taqueria Cononita has been designated, by me,
as The Greatest Place on Earth, the Fort Knox of fine tequila, the place at which I wouldn't mind
so much giving up my corporial body, the bar tab which I'd most like to permanantly check out owing,

...and the manager is a plata fan?

I'll have to straighten her out.
 

The news got worse...

They no longer have the "Three mini-shots for $11," or whatever it was, so that kills it for a place
to test many fine tequilas. If I have to drink the whole shot, I'll be worthless after 20-25 shots.
But that means we have to find a new Greatest Place on Earth.  So I asked her who she could
recommend for a taste party  - she said try Border Crossing at the good old Mandalay Bay.  (cough)

I called Mandalay Bay and they said yes, they have the "sampler" package,
but they only have about twenty tequilas, and I'm like - What the eff?

What does a man have to do to try some fine tequila in this cow town?

Then I remembered my good friends at Gardunos. (choke)
Last time we were in Las Vegas, the biggest tequila bar in the world was two weeks from opening.
Garduno's Margarita Factory is its name, at the Fiesta Hotel and Casino, which is off the strip.

I called there & talked to the manager.
He said they had about 200 tequilas and they didn't actually have a sampler deal set up,
but I told him I was coming all the way from K-Drag, Oklahoma specifically to drink some
fine tequila and I explained that I needed to try 30-50 different brands, so I could talk about
them on my tequila dot com (which is mostly true, right?) so he said he'd fix me up.

Yoo Hoo!

Continuing on, I got on the  alt.vacations.lasvegas  newsgroup and asked around.
Some dude said to check the Pink Taco at the Hard Rock Cafe.
I talked to the manager there and he said they had over a hundred fine tequilas
and he'd sell me half-ounces, quarter-ounces - whatever.

Yoo Hoo!

Plus, there's the snooty folks at the Coyote Bar & Grill at the MGM,
and I hear the new Palms Casino has a tequila bar.

Plus, I'll bet the Bellagio doesn't want to be second best in tequila, right?

And the new Aladdin probably doesn't want to be a Cuervo casino, either.

So the treehouse will be dark until Christmas night.
By then, I will have found a new Greatest Place on Earth, and possibly,
...a new greatest tequila in the world, but I doubt it.
 
 

See you tomorrow, Shannon.