Leaving Las Vegas

Leaving Las Vegas was nothing special. Either was getting there.

I landed at McCarran at a little after 9:00 Monday morning. You would think I would be ready to go except for one problem. I was just passing through on my way to Long Beach for a business trip. I walked by a bunch of slot machines that were there to entice that last of the money held by people returning home from a long weekend of degenerate fun. After waiting maybe 30 minutes, I jumped onto a plane headed for Orange County.

One the way back home I was think I would be on a non-stop flight back to Chicago but was fooled when we landed the mostly empty plan back in Las Vegas. Four of us were left on board and we were forced to leave the plane as the next flight crew wasn’t ready yet. I moved my stuff up to the front row so I could get off quickly when we returned to Chicago and made my way back to the gate area. I watched as an elderly woman told her husband time and again that it was no wonder he lost at joker poker because he didn’t know how to play. This was after she ran out of money. Anyway, I went to the bathroom and waited to return to my seat.

The trip home was full of people coming down from a day of partying and started with me sitting next to one of the weirdest people I have ever met. I can’t tell you why I thought this other than I think he might be the next Jeffrey Dahmer. I eventually returned home about 22 hours after I had left on Monday, realizing that I had made two trips to Vegas in one day and didn’t even throw a quarter into a slot machine.