Mariann Mohos - You Want WHAT??? Concierge Tales from the Men and Women who Make Las Vegas Dreams Come True

Copyright 2011 by Mariann Mohos

Copyright 2016 - Updated Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

Cover design by John Kasperowicz and Annie Manning

Book design and text composition by HERIBERT C BT., www.heribertc.hu

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011900026

Published in the United States

Contents

Chapter 1
Goofy MomentsNot Quite Rolling a 7 or 11

Chapter 2
Love and Marriage in Las VegasGambling on Love

Chapter 3
Very Unusual RequestsOdd Numbers Only

Chapter 4
It's Their PartyStacking the Chips

Chapter 5
Naughty BitsSerious Steam

Chapter 6
Funny: Ha Ha!What are the Odds?

Chapter 7
A Time for MiraclesLongshots

Chapter 8
Unusual RequestsPropositions

Chapter 9
Money MattersAnte Up

Chapter 10
Famous FacesPaying the Runner

Chapter 11
Funny in a Peculiar WayBUST!

Chapter 12
Crimes and MisdemeanorsCounting Their Cards

Chapter 13
Heartfelt MomentsWinning the Pot

Introduction

When people ask me what I do for a living and I tell them Im a concierge, they are immediately intrigued. Oh, I bet you have some fun stuff going on! they exclaim. They become even more intrigued when I tell them where I ply my trade Las Vegas.

Thanks to everything from the What happens in Vegas advertising campaign to movies like The Hangover, the publics interest in Las Vegas has intensified; people have an unending fascination with life on The Strip. They want to know the weirdest question I have ever heard as a Las Vegas concierge, the funniest guest request, the most memorable one, and so on.

Over the years, as I have shared stories about my career as a concierge, people would always want to hear more. This gave me the idea to go out and ask my fellow concierges about their stories, and to compile everything into a book to share it with the world.

I interviewed more than three dozen colleagues from both big and small hotels and combined them to be told here by one voice. Since a cornerstone of our profession is privacy, all guest names have been changed. A few stories have also been modified for various reasons, but all has been done to protect those involved as well as the narrative.

Interviewing my fellow Las Vegas concierges turned out to be an extremely rewarding experience. I soon learned that I definitely had not heard it all and that some requests really should be deemed too strange.

There is truly no limit to the variety of things that happen to a concierge on the Strip. In one conversation, you might be talking about where to get the best foie gras, and in the next you could be assisting a guest whose quickie marriage has turned out to be the biggest mistake of his young life. You may even find yourself meeting some famous people and doing whatever it takes to get them their coveted grilled cheese sandwiches. We concierges have found ourselves on our knees in front of Playboy bunnies and covering naked old men with pillows from the lobby. Sometimes, we use our network of connections to get things donewhether it be getting someone out of an Italian jail or finding a straightjacket on the strip. At other moments, we are there to help our guests through some of the toughest and most unexpected timesfrom sudden death to life-threatening injury. You never know what your role as concierge may actually involve. For the most part though, its all about helping guests fulfill their personal and vacation dreams.

Finally, I hope that you, the reader, will have as much fun reading through these Las Vegas snippets as I did compiling them. If you happen to have a Las Vegas concierge story of your own that you would like to share, please feel free to email me at the address listed below.

At your service,
Mariann Mohos
April, 2015

Not Quite Rolling a 7 or 11

People who visit Las Vegas are often star-struck by the sights, the sounds, and the amenities. Between this and the plans that are swirling around in their heads, they sometimes get distracted. Often, this can lead to silly questions or situations where guests just arent thinking clearly. Of course, it also leads to a special kind of hilariousness!

In the so-called City of Sin, a concierge must prepare herself for the most outrageous of requests. In preparing to accommodate the most incredible of desires (within reason and the law, of course), we often err on the side of the fantastical, even when the request is quite benign. Maybe we just arent expecting to hear someone ask for something so boring and harmless. This over-estimating, however, has made doing the job a little harder than it needed to be a time or two.

A Scottish gentleman had been staying with us, and one morning, he called me at the concierge desk.

Can you please find me a virgin chicken? he asked.

Having a bit of a distracted day, I confirmed with him that I could before his request clearly registered, but when I hung up the phone and allowed myself a moment, my heart sank: what had I committed to finding? I became doubtful; but then again, this was Vegas, and he was from a different country. I steeled myself to give this man exactly what he wanted, committed to making the guests stay the absolute best.

I consulted a few other staff members.

Have you ever heard of someone needing a virgin chicken? I asked. I must admit, visions of rituals and rites performed with dark hoods and golden chalices entered my mind, but I put them out of my way. I had only known this guest to be the most pleasant of men.

When none of my colleagues could help me, I did what any good concierge would do: I Googled the term. Needless to say, the search results were off the wall and in some cases, positively X-rated.

I was rather embarrassed, because for the most part, Vegas concierges have at least a working knowledge of anything a guest could ask for. Weve seen it all and heard it all. So it was with regret that I called the guest and told him that we couldnt find a virgin chicken anywhere. Thats when we discovered that the mans thick Scottish accent had been a problem.

Hed asked for a Virgin check-in, as in Virgin Atlantic Airlines. He jetted back home after some gentle ribbing of the staff member who had taken his first call, and no doubt shared this story with glee back in Glasgow. Who can blame him?

Now, I consider myself adept at reading people, and so I resolved that this guest had no intention of using a virgin chicken for any of the purposes Google thought to mention.

Suddenly, I snapped my fingers in inspiration: it must be some delicacy hed like to enjoy while he was here. I began calling a few of the finer restaurants on the Strip.

Am I being pranked? one chef asked me. Is this some weird episode of Punked? he accused.

No, no, I assured him. I just had a question about a virgin chicken from a guest, and I wasnt really sure what it meant. Is it some dish, or some special delicacy?