This place has craps covered, in more ways than one

Friday night a bunch of us went out to the new Northern Quest Resort & Casino for a fundraising dinner and auction. It’s the first time we’d been out there since all the big (and I do mean big) renovations happened. That gargantuan oasis of all things fortuitous glimmered through the dark like a spinning disco ball. I was actually tingling in anticipation, a phenomenon that usually only happens at dessert tables and baseball games.

You know how sometimes things look awesome on the outside but once you get inside you wonder what all the fuss was about? Yeah, that was not the case in this instance.

We unwittingly parked our car as far away from the entrance we needed as humanly possible. Which meant we had to walk from one end of the resort to the other, stopping three different times to ask for directions, because the grand expanse of the place is completely disorienting. Wait, that’s not entirely true. I had to stop three times to ask for directions. There’s no way Eric was going to do it, but he has evolved enough that he’s perfectly comfortable asking me to ask for directions.

Along the way we passed a buffet, a couple sit-down restaurants , a food court, a room filled with electronic gaming machines (and a haze of cigarette smoke), two gift shops and a couple of night clubs . There are two other bars that we didn’t see (which means maybe we didn’t actually walk from one end of the resort to the other … good god, there’s more?). Come to think of it, we didn’t see the resort hotel either (good god, there is more).

One of the clubs we passed was Liquid, which, I think, is a slinky clothes and too-much-cologne-required dance club. Our casual-comfort style probably wouldn’t have gotten us through the door, but I felt myself wanting to give it a try. Not because of what might be inside, but because the outside was so very cool. Colored walls of water cascade from the ceiling into pools at the floor, and blue-hued glass marbles surround the club’s exterior like a glittering moat. Alas, I’d left my short skirt at home, and so we walked on to our banquet hall.

The event was a total success and we had a lovely time mingling and bidding. But the highlight of my night came on my first trip to the bathroom. The resort has outfitted their facilities with … get this … toilet seat condoms!!! A simple wave of the hand or push of a button and Voila!, a fresh plastic sanitary seat cover whirls around the seat and stops just in time for you to sit down. OMG!  Coolest thing, evar!

I ran back to our table after this amazing discovery, almost bursting with the exciting news. My mom jumped up and ran to the loo for an immediate inspection. But Heather, my sister-in-law, who’d already made the toilet’s acquaintance, was far less enthused about the whole thing. “What if they’re like those cloth towels in truck stop bathrooms? You know the ones that are on a continuous loop? What if you’re actually getting recycled toilet condoms?”

I squealed in disgust just as Eric chimed in with a solution. “You know what you need to do? You need to go in there with a Sharpie and put an ‘X’ on the plastic. Then stand there and push the button over and over again. And hope you don’t see that ‘X’ come around.”

I feel better not knowing. But you can bet I’ll be packing a Sharpie the next time we visit.