If a person has issues with crowds, noise, weird lighting, and escalators, where should you take her? Yes! To a huge casino!

We (my husband, my sister, my brother-in-law and I) recently descended upon the Mohegan Sun. After checking in, we admired our view of fog from our 30th floor room. And there are antique telephones in the bathrooms, above the toilet paper holders! I thought it was very interesting and perhaps a way for people to stay in contact with their bookies, but my husband suggested it was there in case you needed emergency assistance. We agreed to disagree due to his lack of imagination.

There was a glass water sculpture where the hotel and the casino wings met, which was handy because it meant I occasionally knew where I was. I did have a moment of confusion when I found myself at a pink water sculpture when I was looking for a blue one, but then I realized the LED colors shift. Tricky bastards.

You know that graphic that goes around the internet saying “I’m sorry for what I said when I was hungry”? Pretty sure whoever made that had met me past dinnertime. It was time to eat and the ensuing conversation led me to snap at my brother-in-law that I already had a husband to play the I don’t care, what do you want to eat game with, so he pointed over my shoulder and said “there”. Sadly, once you’ve been a bitch, you can’t then whine about the results. (Yeah, that totally didn’t stop me.) There was a BLOB on the plate next to my steak. (And that’s all you get, by the way. Steak. On a plate. For $40.) Luckily, my brother-in-law rescued me from it and claimed it was an onion.

When it came time for dessert, my husband and I decided to share chocolate cream pie because even rich people can’t screw up chocolate cream pie, right? Wrong. We were served a bowl of chocolate pudding with some kind of fancy cookie on top. When I’m out of my element, I get a little…rigid and I was not willing to accept this as chocolate cream pie. No, this is NOT CHOCOLATE CREAM PIE. NO NO NO. Luckily, my brother-in-law once again saved me from my fancy food by taking the cookie, and my husband invited me to share his bowl of chocolate pudding. It was quite good chocolate pudding, and the dollop of whipped cream they’d hidden under the cookie tasted like Kahlua.

For what it’s worth, when you’re in a place that serves you a steak on a plate and charges $40 for it with a straight face, the correct answer to how is it is not, “Well, it’s no Applebee’s, but…”

On Saturday, I was briefly left unattended and ended up at the Swarovski store. My sister met me there and I bought new earrings. Then, after participating in a wonderful romance panel, I needed a Dunkin Donuts iced coffee and I knew there was one in the casino. It was less about the coffee, which was available almost anywhere, and more about the emotional touchstone of normal. Dunkins is my normal.

My brother-in-law, who you should feel free at this point to picture repeatedly riding to my rescue on a white steed, led the quest to find me an iced Dunkins coffee, which consisted of multiple laps around the casino, directions from a gentleman who didn’t know his left from his right and, finally, being led there personally by a casino employee. We then relaxed for a few minutes, as much as one can at a Dunkin Donuts with no chairs. Since there are no clocks in the casino, I can only guess this took about three hours. Then we finally found my husband, who had been playing Blackjack for about 6 hours on the original $40 worth of chips he bought before my panel. Strangely enough, no casino people offered to comp us cool free stuff.

Then it was time to eat and I lived in fear of the buffet suggestion. We’d done the buffet for breakfast and it was rough. Noisy and crowded and people couldn’t figure out how to make an orderly line and there were kids with no parents and THE GUY USED THE SAUSAGE TONGS IN THE BACON AND…sorry. It was rough. My husband wanted to try the Irish pub and it was the highlight of the weekend.

It was very dark, with a sports atmosphere, and the kind of noisy where you have to yell to each other, so I was a little anxious. (Olympic hockey was the on the screen next to us, but I deliberately pulled up the score and spoiled myself so I wouldn’t turn my chair and ignore my family.) The server was awesome and so were the drinks. I have a one drink maximum rule, but I had three. I think there were three. I started with some blue fruity thing, but liked my sister’s better, so then I ordered one of those. But I drank all of my blue one first. Then we had liquid dessert. Anyway, the dinner itself was the best thing I’d ever eaten.

It was Gaelic Steak, which was a fat steak with a delicious creamy sauce, red potatoes and seasoned, sauteed mushrooms. My brother-in-law and my husband had desserts you eat with a fork (as opposed to ours, which came in a glass). My husband got an apple cobbler thing that looked amazing, so I tried it and, right after he warned me not to burn my mouth, I burned my mouth. It was worth it.

Then things get a little hazy. I looked over and my husband had a bottle of Sephora liquid eyeliner and, if you knew my husband, you would be as confused by this as I was. He said a woman had tapped him on his shoulder and handed it to him. While there was a very logical discussion going on around me as to how she probably thought it belonged to my sister or I and we’d dropped it, I went straight to A WOMAN TOUCHED YOU? and came pretty close to having a Real Housewives of New Jersey moment. Fortunately, I didn’t want to spill my drink, so the table remained unflipped. Now I’m a fairly self-aware person, so I was surprised to learn at the age of 41 that, if I’ve had three drinks and a woman hands my husband a bottle of liquid eyeliner, I will totally lose my shit.

What do you do with a woman who’s had three drinks and remains annoyed by her inability to identify Sephora lady? Take her back to the casino tables! We played Blackjack because it’s the only game I know how to play and, with some help from my husband, I can usually count to twenty-one. Fun fact? They bring you drinks when you gamble. And no wussy watered down drinks, either. When they bring you raspberry vodka and Sprite, it’s light on Sprite and gets lighter with each drink.

Another new thing I learned about myself? I’ll hit every time on sixteen. I’ll hit every time on seventeen. And, just to piss off the mansplainer to my right, I’ll even hit on eighteen if I’m told to stay. And I also apparently like pretty colors and will hand over ugly paper money to collect lots of different pretty colored chips. (My very sober husband was to my left and all ugly paper money in my possession was expendable. And I expended the hell out of it.)

And on Sunday we went home.