I was expecting MAGA hats on the front desk staff -- Jackie had warned me to expect that -- but they played down the politics. There was a fine selection of Trump branded merchandise in the gift store -- hats, shirts, golf stuff, candy -- but maybe no more than there would be Caesar's branded stuff at Caesar's Palace. No MAGA hats. The name on the building, though, is certainly prominent enough to, for example, compensate for really short fingers.
We ate in the hotel restaurant the first night, and I was a shade disappointed to find the next day that it was named the DJT restaurant. At some point I wonder, however, if it maybe used to be called the Donald J Trump restaurant, and they had to tone that down too.
The stay worked out fine, but that will be the last time we patronize any place with the Trump name on it. It had not occurred to me before the trip, but the truth was, we were embarrassed about where we were staying. When people asked where we sere staying, it was just difficult to say "Trump Tower" without wondering what people thought about us. Many of the taxi drivers were of African descent, and we ended up explaining that it was just cheaper to stay there, a few times. I told one driver that if there had been an Obama Tower, we would have stayed there, but there is not one.
Odd that we have come to a point where any association with the President of the United States is a source of shame.
For tax reasons, I need to document my gambling losses, which I did in fact incur, so this is as good a place as any. I lost $100 at the Mandalay Bay, now known as the scene of that horrendous mass shooting in 2017. I played $5 at a time in a slot machine, lost 20 times straight. Easy. Jackie lost another $100 playing a $1 machine at the Luxor, winning a little and eventually frittering it all away. Then we played $100 at the Mirage when we went to see the Love Cirque du Soleil show. We bet either $5 or $10 at a time and lost the $100 without winning once, just like Mandalay Bay.
The last morning there, I walked over to the Winn, won $50, and called it good.
But the reason I need to document my losses is so that I can use them to offset Jackie's winnings. On the way home, we went to the airport early, and Jackie took $40 to play a quarter machine, playing the maximum five quarters at a time. So when she hit the jackpot, she hit the biggest jackpot the machine pays: 5,000 quarters. That's $1,250, and it turns out that if you win more than $1,199, they notify the IRS. In the end, it took four people to pay us off and give us a form W-2G, which is for gambling winnings. I never had one of those before.
So all in all it was a good trip. Not staying at the Trump Tower anymore though.
