Baby Lions and Spilt Milk in Las Vegas

Las Vegas is one of my favorite places in the world, but it can also be a pretty rough town. While there this past summer, I had an experience I will never forget. My good friend Steve Clear and I had popped in to the MGM, which for those of you who don’t know, is the casino with the lions outside. Well wait until I tell you, a new baby lion had been born in the MGM. The mother had just given birth to it and she was licking it and giving it some love, when an attendant had gone in the back leaving the back door open, and the male lion got out. Not the female, the female stayed with the baby, but the male lion got out and the male lion’s natural instinct is to feed the baby. I was with Steve Clear when the panic hit, but we got separated and he didn’t realise what had happened. I go running through the casino, running and running and running, I finally find Steve Clear and I shout, “Steve! Look out, Steve, the lion has escaped from the MGM!” He said, “Which way has it gone?” And I said to him, “Do you think I’m chasing it?”

But it happened that the next morning I received a phone call from Clark County jail and it was Steve Clear. Steve tells me that he’s been locked up for being drunk and disorderly and I’ve got to go and get a bail bond to get him out. So I get drop off by the Stratosphere Hotel to get one of these bail bonds. When I get out of the taxi I know I’m in trouble. There are people living in the backs of cars and there’s a man doing a homemade tattoo, and I have absolutely no idea where this bail bond shop is. I walk up to these two little girls who were only five and three and say to them, “Excuse me, but do you know where I can get a bail bond from?” They walk me down this path and up a side road, and I just knew when I got to the bail bond shop that I was in trouble. There were no doors or windows; it was just ramps, pulleys, and chains!

The older girl knocked on the shutter. I heard a guy say from inside, “Who is it?” “It’s Miguel’s daughter,” she said, and the shutter went up. The guy said to her, “Is your dad in trouble?” and she said, “No, it’s this Englishman.” Anyway I went in and I explained to him that Steve Clear had been drinking the night before and he’d been arrested. The man gave me a bail bond for $1,070 dollars, which got Steve $10,000 worth of bail plus seventy dollars for the bondsman’s services. As I came out the two little girls were waiting for me. I asked if they could help me get a taxi, and so they walked me round and got me in this little taxi rank.

I said, “Look, girls, I’d like to give you some money.” So I went to give them five dollars and the older girl said to me, “Mister, mister, please don’t give me any money. My father drinks real bad and he’ll take the money off me and he’ll buy beer with it!” So I said, “Well what do you want then?” She said, “Could you buy some formula powdered milk for my little sister?” I answered, “Why sure I can, but where am I gonna get formula powdered milk from?” The girl took me around to a shop and I ask the guy if he’s got any powdered formula milk for this little baby, and the guy picks a tin up off the floor that I couldn’t carry, and says, “That’ll be one hundred and five dollars.” I went, “What? One hundred and five dollars! I was only gonna give the girl five dollars!” Anyway I paid for it and I gave the girls the tin and made my way back to the Golden Nugget.

To my surprise who should I find there but Steve Clear. He had been released from jail. What had happened was when the policemen realised that he was English, they gave him a slap on the wrist and they let him go. I threw the $1,070 dollar receipt at Steve and said, “Here. You can go and get me the money back off this.” Steve Clear then jumped in a taxi and went to the bail bond shop, while I went to play cards in the Golden Nugget.

About an hour and a half later Steve came back and sat down at my table and bought five hundred dollars worth of chips. And he threw me the thousand dollars that he owed me and said, “Martin, I’ve seen the funniest thing ever today. While I was getting that bail bond cashed I popped into the shop next door, and there was two little girls couldn’t have been more than five years old selling a formula milk powder tin back to the shopkeeper for one hundred dollars.” They had me! These two girls, I was prepared to give them five dollars, and they got one hundred and five dollars off me. These two little girls are without a doubt the best salesmen in Las Vegas. It’s a place I will always love, but you can never be too careful.