What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vagus

And it’s gonna be there till you deal with it, Baby.

Original image by the author

They didn’t need context because we all knew what they meant, those cheeky ads for Las Vegas.

The implication of “What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas” was clear — you can act out your wildest fantasies in Las Vegas because that’s what Las Vegas exists for. To host your wilding ass and keep your secrets.

It was a stunningly successful marketing campaign, but like so many marketing campaigns, it was a lie.

As Jeffrey Epstein and company discovered, there’s no place on earth where one’s misdeeds “don’t count” in the long run, and that truth has both pros and cons.

It’s kind of like that saying, the body keeps the score. You can lock it away, you can pretend it didn’t happen, but the memory remains in your body, ready to flare up and out you for all your “sins” real and imagined, those committed both by and against you.

Las Vegas is to the Vagus Nerve as…

And that brings us to (in Rat Pack parlance) the free, fine, wild, knocked out, coo coo, groovy vagus nerve — the great scorekeeper in our bodies. Believe me, Honey — if it’s broke, you ain’t oke.