Reaping richees in Las Vegas

My New York sister returned from her week long trip to Las Vegas richer than she left.
Before she left, a church friend teasingly hinted her trip had to do with a looming mid-life crisis, “We need to pray for her. She is turning 50 this week and is heading out to Las Vegas.” If she experienced a mid-life crisis, it was a crisis she shared with our Arizona sister who left her home in the desert at about the same time that day, to drive north to meet her at the Las Vegas airport.
Whichever it was, the trip began with a wait at the gate of the airport while the airline personnel requested volunteers to take a later flight for a $200 voucher – the flight was overbooked. New York Sis ignored the requests, took out her crochet hooks and worked on her current project. She had to meet be on time to meet her sister.
The airline personnel kept asking for volunteers. When they upped the voucher to $300, the crochet hooks went into her bag. She knew Arizona Sis would understand.
And she did, especially when she heard that New York Sis got a meal voucher to use while she waited 90 minutes to catch a flight with a different airline – where she was given in a window seat in a row by herself in the part of the plane “with bigger seats than I have ever had. It was really, really nice,” New York Sis said, relishing the memory a week later.
A couple hours behind schedule, the two sisters met in Las Vegas at the luggage carousel.
“They had lost half my luggage. They were supposed to walk it down to the next plane but half was left in Chicago – the half that had the presents. The airline people were quite apologetic. They promised to deliver them the next day to where I would be staying,” She was inconvenienced but pleased that she did not have to go back to get the luggage. She had her clothes and could spend the rest of the time with Arizona Sis without further interruptions and delays at the airport.
They had shopping and talking aplenty to do. They headed for the outlet mall. They had just found it, when a man ran a red light right in front of them.
Arizona Sis hit the brakes in the nick of time.
Whew!
And, whack! A taxi-cab, that did not stop in time, rear-ended them.
The city taxi authority arrived first, then the police and then a representative from the taxi cab company joined the group on the side of the road. He promised pay to have the car fixed up like new.
“Now to compensate you for your inconvenience, I will give you each $200 in cash today,” the representative told Arizona Sis.
“Well, I will have to talk this over with my sister.”
Arizona Sis pulled New York Sis aside and explained the situation. “Now the question is, ‘Can we take the money with a straight face?’ This is serious stuff,” she whispered.
They still had a functioning car – which would be repaired. They would be stiff the next day, but neither had been hurt and someone was promising to give them $200 each for their inconvenience.
They decided they could manage the straight face and went back collect their cash.
The man held a sheaf of $100 bills, a pen and paperwork.
“When I reached for the money, he gave me the pen and said I needed to sign the paper first. I signed,” New York Sis said.
Arizona Sis took a bit longer – she studied the phrase about property damage to be sure the car would be fixed.
“They will cover it,” the policeman assured her.
They drove off in their dented car with an extra $400 between them and headed for the mall where Arizona Sis proceeded to spend her $200.
“I got a leather purse, leather gloves and a great story to tell of how I went to Las Vegas, didn’t even put a penny in the penny slot machine and returned richer than I left,” New York Sis gloated, quite pleased with her mid-life trip to Las Vegas.
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times.)