I Survived My Vegas Vacation: Day 1, Part 1-The Flight

Well, I’m back. After half a week in what can only be described as Eden with breast implants, I’ve returned home to the humid morass of our nation’s capital. By comparison, it now seems even more awful. Over the course of the next few days, I will give a detailed breakdown of everything that went down over my vacation, as much for my sake as yours. I want a written record of one of the more pleasant times I’ve experienced as an adult to be there for me in my darker hours, aka every minute I spend away from that Heaven on Earth. Honestly, just to be safe, someone needs to confiscate my belt and shoelaces.

The trip began with a drive to Baltimore-Washington Airport, a rare occurrence for me both because Dulles Airport is located virtually in my backyard and the fact that I virulently despise Baltimore, as does any other person with a shred of human worth. After bidding goodbye to my roommate *cough*mother*cough*, who was kind enough to drop me and my brother off, I entered BWI and made a beeline for the only available electrical outlet, a position of utmost power in an airport terminal. Of course, given I was in Baltimore, it was non-functional, and, given that I’m me, I was too lazy to move away, which resulted in an interesting social experiment that determined which people I’d warn about the socket’s broken status and begin talking to (answer: attractive women) and whom I’d either grunt the word “broken” at or ignore entirely (answer: everyone else).

After two hours of silently thumbing away on my Nintendo DS like the autistic grade schooler I am at heart, I boarded the plane, a cramped 737 that, once fully occupied, felt like it was ready to take me across the Middle Passage.

As I sat down, my eyes entered Terminator scan mode in search of potential mid-flight problems. Not “Detonate the fuselage in the name of you-know-who” problems (though I did catch a couple of Sikhs who would have tripped up a less-accomplished bigot), but annoyances that might make things less than pleasant. I quickly found one in an overweight man who spoke with a lisp, wore his hair full of product and was surrounded by a cadre of overweight females who laughed at his every horrible joke.

Believe me, I have nothing against gay men (I can practically hear you all racing to scream “Except for your tongue, homo!” at the screen), but if you’re going to pride yourself in being a catty bitch nexus for fruit flies to buzz around, at least keep your bon mots mildly amusing. I’m not asking for Oscar Wilde, just don’t be Larry the Cable Guy’s cock-craving counterpart, either. Sadly, my gay delivered not a single intentional laugh (and very few unintentional ones), but was more than enough volume-wise to keep me from napping during the flight. At least I was still able to experience the one joy that BWI provides all of its travelers: Hurtling out of Baltimore at hundreds of miles per hour. If Meatloaf releases another Bat Out of Hell album, the cover needs to depict a plane hurtling off that runway as Omar Little takes potshots at it.

I landed in Milwaukee two hours later to catch a connecting flight to Las Vegas, confident that the worst of my travels were behind me. Oh, how wrong I was. In the next installment, we will explore the second leg of my journey, which made the first seem like a cold beer on a hot day by comparison, and what I did upon finally touching down in Vegas. Stay tuned!

Tagged as: Las Vegas.