The Porn Snappers

If you were asked to name the thing that bugs visitors to Las Vegas the most, what would you say? Weekend traffic jams? Being dealt a blackjack but now being paid only two times your bet? Those minibars in pricey hotel rooms for which you’ll get charged $50 just for moving a candy bar? Or the person in front of you in the buffet line who takes 20 minutes poking through the crab legs to pick out the choicest ones?

None of the above. The number-one annoyance is the porn snappers. The what? That’s the name given to those hundreds of guys lining portions of the Strip, snapping “Girls to your room in 20 minutes” porn cards and shoving them in your face as you stroll past them on the sidewalk. Talk about having to walk a gauntlet! It doesn’t seem to matter if you’re a 20-year-old looking for action or an 80-year-old looking for a restroom, it’s snap, snap, shove, shove, until you feel like snapping them with a baseball bat.

And about 99.9 percent of the cards that tourists take end up littering the streets, costing the merchants or somebody a fortune to clean up, to say nothing of all the trees cut down to make all those cards.

I did some research to find out why Vegas hadn’t gotten rid of these pests a long time ago, and got some interesting answers. For one thing, I discovered, to my surprise, that the Strip is part of Clark County but not the city of Las Vegas. That’s why you find these porn snappers on the Strip but not in Downtown Las Vegas, where the city can ban them. And while legal injunctions have been tried in the past, they seem to have been slapped down for violating constitutional rights. You know, freedom of speech. And of course it isn’t these guys who are littering the streets and sidewalks, it’s the tourists who drop them.

Well, don’t Vegas and sex go together? After all, this is Sin City, not Sun City. Anyway, on a recent visit to Vegas, my curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to check out what those street people were hustling. Nothing dirty or lustful on my part, you understand, purely journalistic research. So, while my sweetie was busy playing a tournament, I went out and collected about 50 cards (very thorough research, you understand). Prices ranged from a $35 special for a cutie named Cindy to $150 (and “no hidden fees”) for Braxton. I finally settled for a $49 special with Fallon, a Marilyn Monroe look-alike with implants as big as soccer balls. I made the phone call, had the fee charged to my credit card, and hustled to my hotel room to do more research.

More than two hours went by before there was a knock on the door and a frighteningly familiar voice called out, “I’m here, boychik.”

Oh, no. It couldn’t be … it mustn’t be … it was … Aunt Sophie! She nodded at me in recognition. “So, a schlub you are just like the rest of them. Well, surprised I’m not.”

“They sent you?” I stammered in confusion. “I thought they were supposed to send a girl in 20 minutes.”

“With arthritis like I have got, so fast you try walking. Someday maybe decent support stockings I can afford.”

I pulled the porn card out of my pocket in anger. “Well, it doesn’t matter how long it took you. What does matter is that you aren’t the girl on this card.”

“Oh, that’s me all right, dollink. On my picture maybe a little bit of hair brushing they did.”

“Airbrushing? How many tanks of air did they have to use? And why are you here in the first place? Aren’t you still a cocktail waitress at the Barstow Card Casino?”

“Fired I got,” Aunt Sophie explained, “after one of those farmers there caught me spitting in his drink because tip me he never did.”

I shuddered. “Look, Aunt Sophie,” I tried to reason with her. “What you’re doing here is disgraceful. Your nephew, Michael Wiesenberg, would be mortified if he knew about it.”

“Mortified?” Aunt Sophie laughed. “He himself this job he got for me. Even a commission I have to pay the gonif on anything I make.”

“How much do you make?” I asked.

“Well, tonight, $30.25 so far I have been paid.”

“Thirty dollars and twenty-five cents? Who paid you twenty-five cents?”

Aunt Sophie shrugged. “Everybody.”

I didn’t like the way things were going. “Look, Aunt Sophie, this is all a big mistake. Can’t you just leave now?”

“Well, not just yet, dollink. Some gelt it will cost you after a service from me first you will have to pick. For me to be your escort tonight, another $10 it will cost you.”

Be seen in public with Aunt Sophie? I hastily shook my head. “What else?”

“To touch my boobies, $15 it will cost.”

I turned pale. “I don’t think so. Anything else?”

“Well, a lap dance …”

I finally settled for the cheapest, least sexual thing she had on her menu: a quick game of strip poker. We were a few minutes into the game and I was trying my best not to look at Aunt Sophie’s drooping boobs when the hotel room door was suddenly flung open and Barbara stormed in, as angry as I had ever seen her. This is it, I thought, my life is over. But my sweetie was mad about something entirely different — her worst bad beat ever in a poker tournament. “Can you believe it?” she fumed. “My set of aces beat by a jackass with 5-4 offsuit who makes a runner-runner straight!” She was so enraged over what happened to her that she paid no attention to Aunt Sophie, who quickly threw on some clothes and bolted out the door.

An hour later, after Barbara had described in detail (about 20 times over) the hand that busted her, I finally excused myself and went looking for the porn snapper who had hustled me.

Finding the lowlife, I grabbed him by his collar and yelled in his face. “You deceived me, you punk. That was no hottie you sent me, that was Aunt Sophie.”

The snapper just laughed at me. “For $49, mister, you expected maybe Julia Roberts? Be happy we didn’t send you Windy Waggy.”

He had me. I let go of him and walked off. Anyway, all you Vegas tourists, you can’t say you haven’t been warned. ♠

Max Shapiro, a lifelong poker player and former newspaper reporter with several writing awards to his credit, has been writing a humor column for Card Player ever since it was launched more than 20 years ago. His early columns were collected in his book, Read ’em and Laugh.