Las Vegas sucked.

Not to brag (okay, to brag); most of my extended trips find me winning a little, a medium amount or a lot of money. Go ahead and ask Skinny or Stickman who have been with me on so many trips to Atlantic City and Vegas and know the truth of how I have been doing.

Not this time.

I played for only three days and lost all but two sessions, doing four sessions per day of craps, taking the dice three times per session, and also playing one or two sessions of Pai Gow. One craps session win was spectacular — fourteen dollars. I had my fellow “Five Horsemen” to thank for that win. The other winning session was 10 times that much.

My smallest loss was 10 times that "big win" and my biggest loss was totally disgusting; enough to make a grown man (meaning me) cry, “What the hell is going on?”

I played Tuesday and Wednesday with Skinny as Stickman had to go to a family reunion and Dominator and Nick@Night had to go home to get ready for their 4th of July vacations.

So last night I came home a complete and total loser.

How was my shot? It was good. There was one stretch where I was hot — I made a monstrous bet on the six, hit it immediately and thought I was on my way to a fabulous win. I sevened out right after that and slowly proceeded to get my buttocks kicked on my next two rolls.

But Vegas sucked not because I lost. I have lost before. Losing comes with the advantage-play territory. No, what got me was everything else. Nothing went right; nothing at all. It was a horror show. Now follow me on this.

After three days of getting creamed; Skinny and I headed for McCarran Airport. As I was bending over to take off my sneakers on the security line I ripped a fart. I tried to cough to cover it up but to no avail. A little kid pointed to me, exposing me as the culprit.

Skinny and I had a nice talk about this and that. One point we both pointed out was the point that no matter how good a player you become a beating can always happen.

Then I got on the plane. I take Jet Blue, an airline I have come to love. I get those extra leg-room seats in the first six rows. I take flight 190, the flight where the pilot went berserk several months ago; the flight just before the flight that went bonkers because it had lost its hydraulic system and circled Vegas for four and one half hours in order to burn its fuel before landing. That flight was called the “vomitorium.”

Everyone got on the plane and the doors were shut. The middle seat was empty and a really fat guy, far fatter than I ever was, had the window seat. I said hello. He said hello and put his headset on.

Then the pilot announced, “We are going to leave right on time and get to New York about twenty minutes ahead of schedule.”

Everyone cheered.

We backed out of the gate. The plane stopped abruptly. The pilot got on the loudspeaker, “I am sorry but we have engine trouble and we need the mechanics to look at it and make sure everything is all right.”

Everyone moaned.

I started to close my eyes. I wanted to take a nap and…oh, for god’s sake, the guy in the window seat just took off his dirty sneakers and discolored socks and he was now wiggling his hideous looking toes! His feet were filthy. I looked askance at him but he was too busy digging into his god-awful feet and he had no idea that I was shooting daggers at him.

I thought about telling the stewardess but the one up front was quite uptight. She glared when she looked at you. I decided to just close my eyes.

About 20 minutes later the pilot got on the loudspeaker, “Good news! Everything is fine and we’ll be taxiing to the runway now. We are about third in line. We should still be able to get to New York on time.”

Everyone cheered.

The pilot said on the loudspeaker, “We are now number two.”

Then some moron ploppy, moron jackass, ploppy idiot, cretin jerk gets up and walks to the bathroom; opens the door, closes it, locks it. The stewardess with the sour face gets on the loudspeaker, “We cannot take off until everyone is in their seats with their seat belts on.” She waits a few moments. “Maybe someone hasn’t heard me. We cannot take off until everyone is in their seats. Does everyone hear me?”

A round of "Jesus Christs" rings throughout the plane.

The sour stewardess is now beside herself. “We cannot take off until everyone is in their seats. We cannot take off until everyone is in their seats. We cannot take off until everyone is in their seats!”

Another stewardess comes up front and speaks to the sour stewardess, “He is okay. He just has to do a number two.”

“Jesus Christ,” say the three men in the seats in front of me, seats in the first row. These three guys were now trying to flirt with the sour stewardess who seemed to enjoy the attention.

The other stewardess smiled and announced to the passengers, “When that guy comes out of the bathroom, let’s all give him a round of applause.”

Fifteen minutes later the guy comes out of the bathroom. The entire plane erupts into applause. The guy, a true dimwit, starts clapping too! He has no idea that we were all clapping for his idiocy.

I slept most of the flight, that uncomfortable plane sleep, but every so often I’d catch a glimpse of the fat guy picking at his bare feet. I turned and looked across the aisle. There was this girl all wrapped up in a sweater and woolen hat. She was skinny as could be.

We finally landed in New York, about 20 minutes late. Not so bad.

I left the Jet Blue terminal and looked for my ride. It wasn’t there. Car after car came to pick up passengers. But no car came for me. Finally I called the limo service and told them I was waiting for them at Kennedy airport.

After four hundred years my car arrived. I was driven home, tired, unhappy, but truly glad to be home. I could get back to working on my novel.

I went up the porch to open the outer door, the door I do not have a key to, the door the Beautiful AP must leave open for me to get in, now at 8:45 at night, the night she works the late shift in the library — and the damn door was locked; she had forgotten to unlock it. I couldn’t get into my house, my home, my refuge from the horrors of a losing trip to Las Vegas; the horrors of the plane ride, the guy with the filthy toes, the guy who went to the crapper and the lateness of my car ride. The damn door was locked.

I had a choice. I could seat out there for an hour and wait for her to come home, which would mean being eaten alive by mosquitoes, or I could call her and impress upon her that if she didn’t leave work early and open the damn door for me I would go on a rampage.

She came home post haste.

I finally got into my house. I looked at my beautiful wife and said, “I lost. This is the worst trip I have had in the last ten years.”

“Let’s go to bed,” she said with that wonderful smile.

“My pleasure,” I said. “My pleasure.”

All the awfulness was gone.

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