To get from San Antonio to Las Vegas you have to go through somewhere. My two choices were: Austin then Salt Lake City then Las Vegas; or Dallas then Las Vegas. I chose wisely.

Regular readers of these Travelogues know that there has been a pattern of who gets searched at the gate. The searchers and wanders always take the first person in line who is generally someone in first class as first class gets to board before everyone else so that everyone else and mumble under their breath that they're not such hot stuff and the people remaining in the gate to board according to their row numbers from the back of the plane to the front could fly in first class if they wanted to but they don't want to so they wait until row 175 is called then they get on board.

I, on the other hand, like to wait until they call for first class passengers then shout at the top of my lungs IS SEAT 3C IN FIRST CLASS?, and then push through all the people waiting for row 175 with one of those tight smiles which says to one and all I'm being as nice to YOU PEOPLE as I can be, now get out of my way.

Condescending, I think it's called.

Anyway the drill has been to wait until someone else in first class gets into line and then be the second or third person, because the searchers and wanders have always grabbed the first.

Someone must have told.

Sure enough, at Dallas I waited until the first passenger got to the gate agent and oh-so-smugly made my way through the hoi polloi confident in my ability to work the system when - to my horror - they Searchers and Wanders let passenger number one go on board, and grabbed ME!

Ok, another travel tip. I do not look like a Middle Eastern terrorist. I look much more like a short, bald, middle aged American. But, if they only checked people who looked like Middle Eastern terrorists then the Middle Eastern Terrorists would recruit short, bald, middle aged people to do their dirty work.

So if you get pulled out of line - which I do about once in four flights - just go through the drill and shut up.

NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT IT!

Hey. Wait a minute. Let's say there are about 100 people on an average flight. And, let's say they Search and Wand four of them. I should only be searched once every 25 flights. Not once every four.

Now, I'm angry. Why the devil are they pulling someone like me out of line and letting Osama Bin Laden's cousin waltz right through?

So, the man and the woman who were checking my stuff went through everything. Including all of my gizmology, which I will not list here. Suffice it to say, if it's an electronic toy, and it's portable, I have it with me.

I also had a small baggie with some makeup in it.

The woman who was searching my brief case pulled it out and looked at it, looked at me, and asked what it was?

"Makeup," I said.

She looked at me harder. I think she was looking to see if I had holes in my earlobes, if you want to know the truth.

I finally had to tell her that I sometimes do television chat shows from the road and I bring my own makeup.

Ah HAH!. An anomaly. She looked at me and asked me what show?

"Fox cable network tomorrow (doing the time change calculation in my head) between 12:40 and 1 Central time," I said.

She thought about this and put the makeup baggie back in my bag and sent me on my way.

It occurred to me that, after that business last week where some Searcher or Wander made a woman sip from bottles of breast milk to prove they were safe, that she should have made me put some makeup on - just to prove I knew how to do it.

I would have done it. Sometimes I just like to feel pretty.

I mean, they made some other woman hold up her buzzing, er, marital aid when it went off in her suitcase.

You know that woman filed a suit against Delta for embarrassing her. Here's the deal: You cover the terrorist cases in the Alexandria Federal Courthouse. I want to sit in on the buzzing marital aid trial. Maybe Delta will settle, just to get rid of it.

Memo to Delta: Offer to settle for a case of AA batteries. The good ones. Hahahahahaha!

They repacked my roll-aboard and I got on the plane.

There were two sky marshals on the flight from Dallas to Las Vegas. How do I know? I'm not telling.

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People on their way to Las Vegas are generally in a pretty good mood. Almost no one goes to Las Vegas to give a speech and then leave.

When you arrive at Las Vegas you are greeted by slot machines. Lot's 'o slots! And there are people playing the slot machines.

When we got there it was about 10:00 pm, which was about 1:00 am to me, so I just wanted to get a cab to the hotel and hit the sack.

I almost never check any bags. I have gone into a great deal of detail in previous Travelogues about how I attach my briefcase to the front - lowering the center of gravity of the whole system as much as possible - and drape my very manly shoulder bag over the front, so I won't do the whole physics and vector problem thing again.

It generally balances pretty well. But my roll-aboard has developed a squeak in one of its wheels. And not just a little girly-man squeak. I'm talking a crystal-shattering, nails-on the-blackboard SQUEAK. And not just an intermittent squeak. I mean a constant, collision-alarm-danger-Will-Robinson SQUEAK.

This squeak was so annoying that even people playing the slot machines looked up and grimaced at me.

The first 37 times it happened I tried to make some light-hearted comment about being on my way to get the grease for the squeaky wheel, but I think they must not have gotten it because they all just went back to putting coins in and pressing the button.

I switched tactics and made believe I wanted the wheel to squeak. I pretended that I was special and, in case you didn't know it, in Las Vegas, having a squeaky wheel on your roll-aboard was how the people on the inside knew you were a somebody, so you bettors just go back to your 25 cent slots and allow your betters to pass.

I looked for a WD-40 shop but, if there was one, it must have been closed at that time of night.

After squeaking my way to the taxi stand which seemed to be on the other side of Clark County, I queued up. The queue was very long. So long that I considered going back inside and renting a car, but the hotels are only about two miles from the airport and I decided to pretend that my squeaking wheel signified nothing more than a wheel needing oil and I would wait on line like everyone else.

Immediately behind me there were two guys from Miami who must have been on speed because they kept talking like this:

"So, we're going to go to the hotel and check in and then go the casino, right?"
"We'll check in and we'll be in the casino by, what, 11:30?"
"Yeah. 11:30, midnight, maybe. How much did you drink on the plane?"
"I had two drinks."
"Jack?"
"Dewars."
"How much were they?"
"Four each."
"That's not bad for airplane drinks. Are we gonna see Cirque?"
"I've seen Cirque, but not the one at Treasure Island"
"Too bad they don't serve Jello shooters on the airplane"
"Yea, too bad. Are drinks free in the casino?"

It went on like that for almost 40 minutes.

I'm praying for God to either strike me deaf or them dumb - or both.

At last I made my way to the front of the line, got in a cab, and made it to the hotel, about which, more next time.