Watching ongoing changes to the old Sahara brings to mind the game “Would You Rather?” As in, “Would you rather be blown to dust in a celebrated evening of fireworks and tearful farewells or be publicly gutted and dismantled piecemeal until you’re nothing but a wisp of your former self?”

Implosions are a monumentally quick goodbye: What is here one minute is literally gone the next. The dust settles and everyone drives home thinking about the past, present and future while ruminating on mortality à la Kansas’ “Dust in the Wind.” But with every chunk taken away from the famous desert-themed hotel to make way for the SLS comes collective lamentations over the removal of storied kitsch for an LA-themed shopping-mall design. Rather than one quick goodbye, it becomes a drawn-out breakup, a very slow peeling of the Band-Aid with pain in each deliberate tug.

As Rob Oseland, president of SLS Las Vegas, recently stated, “We’re in a three-month phase of demolition.”

It’s not like anyone was crazy about the whole NASCAR theme or roller-coaster facade, but for some reason, watching the camels get trucked away requires a tissue. Now where are we going to get a six-pound burrito?