This incident that happened in Vegas won’t stay in Vegas. But it does explain something about Vegas I have long suspected.

I conducted a half-day workshop this morning for the Las Vegas chapter of the Public Relations Society of America. The day kicked off when my host, Andy North of St. Rose Dominican Hospitals and Saint Mary’s Regional Medical Center, picked me up at The Orleans Hotel and Casino as scheduled at 7 a.m. I noted, by glancing at my watch, that he was right on time. I checked my watch again when he introduced me to the 60 or so attendees promptly at 8, when the session was scheduled to begin.

My watch told me it was just after 10 a.m., the midway point, so I called for a break, then reconvened everyone about 10:20. That’s when things went south. It was 11:30 when Andy started pacing nervously toward the back of the room, so I asked him, “Are we supposed to go until 11:30 or noon?”

“Noon,” Andy said, so I just continued with my presentation. I have done enough presentations to know how to pace myself to get my remarks and the PowerPoint to fit into the allotted time, so I figured I just wasn’t doing a very good job as some people got up to leave. Then, with about 20 minutes’ worth of content remaining, Andy came to the front of the room. I was a bit befuddled: My watch said it was 11:40. In fact, according to Andy’s (and everyone else’s) watch, it was 12:20 p.m.

I’m very grateful to everyone who stuck around and let me wrap up, which was most of the audience (all of whom were terrific—lots of great questions and comments). Clearly, my watch battery began to die after the 10 a.m. break, otherwise I would have picked up the pace, dropped a few examples, and finished on time. At least, that was my first thought. But some of those who attended set me straight. “This is Las Vegas,” more than one of them said, and one explained, “The city has made it possible to slow time down for visitors.”

Which explains everything, including how it can seem like I’ve only been feeding twenties into that slot machine for an hour (according to my watch) when in fact it has been two hours or more. Pretty devious, isn’t it?

I’m still replacing my watch battery.