Back Home to Las Vegas

By hour 11 on a trans-Pacific flight, you start going seat-crazy. Your ass hurts. You can't sleep. You've already watched three movies. You purposely avoid the emergency exit door because it seems like a nice, easy way out.

And you start thinking crazy things, like 'Boy I wish I had a little bowl filled with boogers.'

We toughed it out and things got better when they brought breakfast.

Breakfast consisted of:

• tiny omelette, 1 (one)
• three (3) potato pieces
• half (1/2) tomato
• two (2) rashers of amazing Aussie bacon
• 1 (one) throwing muffin for later
• 1 (one) mix 'n spew muesli and yogurt cup
• assorted fruit pieces
• ONE LITTLE BOOGER-FILLED BOWL

Huh?

I had never seen such a thing.

"What do you think this is?" I asked the Quad Queen as I tasted a little of the booger filling.

"It's a testicle of some kind. Probably Koala."

Good God, she was probably right!

I have since run across one of these in the 'only weirdly ethnic people with strange headgear' section of the Flusherville Solo grocery store. It turns out it is pretty close to a testicle - it's passion fruit.

They'd put some sort of Trans-Pacific Airline Jism-Dressing on top which made the whole thing look kind of nasty.

Needless to say that's where my passion ended for the little koala testicle fruit.

Finally, we began our descent into Los Angeles, just as dawn was breaking. And the question on my mind was - would there, or would there not be a limo waiting for us?

I managed to get the stupid Panasonic wifi working just long enough to retrieve a message from the host at the California who I'd talked to.

"Hi Mr. Flusher! Limo is been arranged and you are all set."

YES.

I was hoping we could stay airside and not have to run the gamut, since we had only carry-on, but no. Thus began a two hour ordeal which consisted of trekking up and down various stairwells, hallways, tunnels, waiting in lineups, going through screenings, changing terminals - on and fucking on.

It's a good thing I'd booked the 11:00 out of LA instead of gambling on the 8:00.

We had a wait to put in at the new gate and we took turns admiring this view:

Boy, that infrastructure looks pretty solid to me.

We loaded up for Vegas, and I slept most of the way. I woke up for approach and it was kind of cool seeing things from the west, which was rare for me.

We landed after doing an interminable loop east past the city, a big, big turn over the Hoover thingy, and finally the east-to-west approach I'm used to.

There was the familiar welcome sign! There was the familiar escalators! And to my amazement, Vegas had gone all out and put up a huge ad hyping my trip report, complete with photos of me! You should have seen it!!!

We were back! And the limo guy was right there. He was kind of surly the whole time, which didn't bother me, and seemed surprised that I tipped him. Not sure what his deal was. And I didn't much care.

We were home, back at the California Hotel and Casino, and we had a parlour suite and a couple of Gold Cards lined up for us. It felt good to be in familiar surroundings after having been so far away.

It was early in the afternoon, so we made a rule - NO LYING DOWN ON THE BED NOT EVEN FOR A SECOND. We just knew, and we both agreed, that to take a little lie down... we'd be out.

No, we had to stay up until at least evening if we were going to get our infernal clocks reset. We'd have to tough it out and make it a 32 hour day since we got up in Sydney.

"How are we going to stay up?" I whined. "There's nothing to do here."

First order of business, use the Gold Cards to skip the line at the coffee shop and get some bloody good, hot, freshly made comfort food. And condiments in packaging that I am able to understand.

Out in the casino, we dabbled on a few machines and then to my shock, the Quad Queen suggested we play... BEEFFALLLLOOO!!!!!! This from the woman that played it, didn't get it, was bored by it, and thought it was the same as every other stupid video slot.

Fine with me, and we saddled up on a nice little bank of two side by each machines. (I don't really say side by each - I've heard it said, and it sounds kind of cool and wrong, so I say it ironically.)

(I guess that means I say it.)

The Quad Queen hit a pretty good Ironical Side By Each bonus round.

That was fun for a while, but the truth is, the casino vacu-sucked the cash out of our pockets. Our dismal luck from two weeks prior didn't seem to have changed.

For fuck's sake, I went all the way to fucking New Zealand to change my luck, and it still didn't work???

I played some triple play, starting with a hundy, and managed to break the ice with, appropriately, Four Flushers.

Four Flushers. Not as good as Four Pointies.

But that's all she wrote. The Quad Queen was off playing something else, and as I sat there by myself, playing, I found I was asleep.

More than once.

I would hit Deal, and between the time I did that, and the time the cards were dealt, I was nodding off.

I'd wake up and be looking at a bunch of cards and wondering what the hell I was doing. I'd try holding them, just in case I was in the middle of a hand, which I was.

After three or four of those, I called it. Time to go up. And sleep. Sleep beautiful sleep.

It was a record - first time I've ever gone to bed as early as 6:00pm in Vegas.

I fell asleep dreaming of the wonderful reception Vegas had given me, and the amazing publicity for my little ole trip report. The ad had been just perfect.

You want to see it? Really?

Well.

OK.

Do you like my 36-pack?

More soon!