Is There Anyone Who Can Fly This Westjet

It's all fun and games and little bottles of Smirnoff in your carryon until someone gets on the airplane intercom and asks "Is there a doctor on board? Anyone with medical experience? A nurse?... A dentist?..."

In the event of an emergency, kick reluctant passengers out the exit.

And then, "Please remain calm. Everything is just a-ok. Also, is there anyone on board who can fly a jet plane?"

The second announcement, I made up, or maybe stole from the Airplane movie.

But the first one was real, and that's exactly how it went down.

The guy in distress behind the Quad Queen did not look good - he was close to unconsciousness. And he hadn't even read my blog.

They strapped an oxygen mask on him and I happened to notice that it got folded and wasn't over his mouth. I alerted them to this, and then solemnly asked them, "Did he have the fish?"

I wanted to ask if there was fish stank too,  but for once, showed restraint.

He got stabilized a little and got some water into him, a cool towel for his forehead. Someone with medical experience had come forward and soon he was ushered up to the front where he could lie down.

I turned to the Quad Queen and said, "If he doesn't improve, we might be having a Denver sandwich. Which is nothing like a rusty trombone. Or a Captain Crunch, but I digress."

About half an hour later I went back to use the head and, since I was in first class, crop-dusted the last 9 rows with a few juicy under-cooked cheeseburger nose muffins.

I checked with the FA back there and she said they were consulting with a doctor on the ground and they didn't know yet whether we'd have to put down.

In the end, his condition improved he was able to get back to his seat. He was diabetic, and had had a serious bout of low blood sugar. Once they figured that out and got some of the needed stuff flowing in his bod, he was okay.

It looked like we would make Las Vegas, and we did. And let me tell you, I've never seen a plane taxi so fast as ours did - they hauled ass to the gate and let him off first to meet with paramedics who were standing by.

All was well, and we were in VEGAS!!!!

I took the obligatory pictures and posted them on Facebook. Down at the baggage claim, there was indeed a guy waiting for us with my name on an iPad, and our 67 year old drive (named Herm) eased the stretch limo out of its dock surely, firmly, and gently.

Herm then crept out and around the ramp and glacially made his way into the tunnel.

By the time we hit I-15, Herm had 'er up to as much as 48 miles per hour.

And actually, I was shitting bricks because virtually all of the traffic was rocketing by us at 70.

"Do you think Herm is driving a bit slowly," said the Quad Queen.

I replied, "Does Angelique Pettyjohn have a green bush?"

We eventually made it to the Californial Hotel and Casino with only two instances of panic braking in response to events half a mile down the freeway.

I tipped Herm $20 and we were there. We got the keys to our parlour suite and headed up.

I'll try to relate what happened next.

The keys didn't work. I stayed with the luggage and Quad Queen headed down to get replacements and use the Women's on the way.

She came back with 4 keys, all freshly coded. None of them worked.

It looked like maybe someone was already in the room with the bolt on. We called down and they sent up a maintenance guy whose master key unlocked the door, no problem.

We stowed our stuff and the Quad Queen went back down and got 2 more keys and brought them up.

None of them worked.

We called the front desk again and the maintenance guy was sent up again. He had to do some fancy eee-lectronic shit to re-code the door lock.

Finally it was sorted but by then it was 3:30 in the morning, our time, a good time to hit the hay after a long trip.

Yeah right.