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I was home for about 12 hours, so I was going to go to Lowe's or Home Depot or some place down on Route 1 south of Alexandria to get some WD-40 to fix the squeak in the wheels of my roll aboard.

It turns out we had some in the garage next to my very excellent tool set which consists of one hammer, two screwdrivers (one with a blade and one Phillips head) [Note to self: Do a Google search on Phillips head screwdrivers and find out why they are named that. Signed, Rich]

Note to Rich. Please, PLEASE don't get off on one of those tangents. Just tell us about the WD-40. Signed, Everyone.

That's about it, for my tool collection. I have some teeny-tiny tools for taking apart computers, but they're not the kind of tools that Norm Abrams drags out every week.

A hammer and two screwdrivers. This. THIS is the measure of a man's life.

WD-40 comes in two ounce cans. It's a good thing we had one. I know me. If I had gone to Lowe's or whatever that place is called, I would have asked for a big can. A jar. A keg. A VAT of WD-40.

I wonder what that stuff is made out of. It's very slippery - of course. Maybe it's made out of spent uranium or something.

I'd have WD-40'd every door in the house. In the neighborhood. I would have WD-40'd every door on the Mullmobile, then gone after all the doors on the Mullings Director of Standards & Practices car. The Lad is on a long road trip; his Explorer is parked out side. WD-40, baby!

By the time I was done I would have been WD-40-ing semis along the Beltway. All 18 wheels! No waiting! Drive her right in over here, Mac! Have you noticed that no one calls anyone else "Mac" anymore. Not since Humphrey Bogart passed away.

As it happened, I sprayed WD-40 on the two wheels of my roll aboard and was done. I sprayed A LOT of WD-40 on the two wheels.

I now tend to leave just the smallest, most innocent trail of WD-40 where 'ere I travel.

A viscous trail of thermonuclear breadcrumbs.

Ok, when I left you I was in Las Vegas. It was pretty good. I still don't think I would want to live there, but it was a good experience.

I had a flight from Las Vegas to Cincinnati. Then from Cincinnati home. Due at Ronald Reagan National Airport at about 4:30 pm. Called the MD of S&P and told her I'd be home for dinner.

SIDEBAR: A couple of weeks ago a reporter for the Washington Post wrote about an interview he had with Grover Norquist who heads up Americans for Tax Reform and lives on Capitol Hill. The reporter is his neighbor and wanted to see if Conservatives were almost like regular people, so he did this interview.

As part of the interview the reporter asked how Grover felt about his successful campaign to have National Airport renamed "Ronald Reagan National Airport." Grover allowed as to how he felt pretty good about it. So good, in fact, that he thought ALL airports should be named after Ronald Reagan.

"Won't that cause confusion," the reporter asked?

"I don't see why," Grover said. "They're already all called 'Airport' and we seem to be able to tell them apart."

I loved that.

At most airports there is a crush at the gate of people wanting to get on the plane so they can sit with their seatbacks and tray tables in the full upright and locked position for an additional half hour longer than the flight.

I do this, too, but I'm not certain why.

At most airports they have to make an announcement for people to stay in their hard blue plastic seats until their row number is called - Hey! Maybe it's the hard blue plastic seats they want to get OUT of which causes us to want to get INTO airplane seats.

See how this works?

Anyway, at Las Vegas airport (soon to be renamed "Ronald Reagan Las Vegas Airport") they have to make announcements to get people onto the plane by warning them the door is about to close, their seat is about to be given away and their personal bag of pretzels will not be available to them.

The reason is, people are still playing the slot machines.

Memo to Airplane Executives: Sell a couple of shares of your airline to an Indian tribe. ANY Indian tribe (except it has to be an American Indian tribe, not an Indian tribe from, like, India). Then have them install slot machines on your airplanes.

No. Really. This is a great idea. If you could sit at your seat and put quarters into the seatback in front of you (unless you are sitting in a bulkhead seat which, flight attendants patiently explain before every flight, is a seat with a WALL in front of it) and press a little button and watch the wheels go round and round and occasionally win money; you would.

I know you would because I have just seen the size of the hotels that people putting quarters into slot machines have paid for.

People would go on flights just to gamble. Not with their lives, like flying on Air Romania, but gamble money.

If Indians can have casinos on their tribal lands, why can't they have gambling on their very own airlines?

See? This is why I am in such high demand as a public speaker.

Where was I?

Oh, yes. Flying to Cincinnati. Well, we GOT to the Cincinnati area and we went into a holding pattern. A long holding pattern.

Finally the pilot came on the public address to tell us there had been and still were really bad storms around the airport and there were millions and millions of airplanes stacked up waiting to land but ground control couldn't tell Major Tom how long that would be.

A few minutes later, he came back on and, in sort of an exasperated voice, told us that we were running short of fuel and "couldn't spend all day up here waiting for clearance," and so we were diverting to Columbus, Ohio.

Ok by me.

We started toward Columbus and almost immediately began descending. When we landed the captain came on and told us all to stay in our seats until Delta told him what was going to happen next: Either we would refuel there and go back to Cincinnati, or they would cancel the flight and, blah, blah, blah.

I am blah, blah, blah-ing because by that time I was on the phone to Delta find out what options I had. I wanted to get home only to get some new laundry. I was going to leave the next day at noon for Fargo, North Dakota so it wasn't critical. I could have bought some new clothes up there.

But I wanted to WD-40 my wheels.

There were two sky marshals on the flight. I talked to one of them and suggested they were going to be the best read people in America. He feigned surprise and asked me what I was talking about. I listed three or four things which had tipped me off and asked him if he wanted more.

He turned away and went back to his seat neither admitting nor denying anything.

I am like Adrian Monk.

They pilot came on and said the flight had been cancelled but Delta was going to take us to Cincinnati by bus.

Hello? Buh-? Me? Who had gotten to check in at the VIP lounge in Las Vegas not 48 hours previous? Go by bus?

I ... don't ... think ... so.

They started letting us off the plane and a Delta woman told everyone to wait in the area outside the gate so she could give instructions.

Right.

I hightailed it out of their lickety-split, squeaking up a storm, as I found my way to the Delta ticket counter.

There was a flight leaving for LaGuardia (soon to be named "Ronald Reagan LaGuardia Airport") in about an hour from which I could catch the Delta Shuttle back to Ronald Reagan National Airport which it is already named.

The ticket agent suggested I take a US Airways flight which would be leaving at about six (it was now about 3:30) but was non-stop to DCA.

Cool. I didn't think they had been in bankruptcy long enough to have caused any problems, so I said, "Book it, Danno."

Ticket agents. Gate agents. Checkout people the Safeway. They ALL love it when I come around.

Really.

They do.

The shorthand is: The US Airways plane didn't even GET to Columbus until nearly EIGHT o'clock (which allowed me to watch the entire last round of the PGA golf tournament) and we didn't get into Ronald Rea - I'm not doing that anymore, if you don't mind - DC until after nine.

However.

I DID get pulled out of line for an extra special security check.

Columbus is one of the airports which has full-scale TSA people doing the screening. Not Transglobal Security, or Iraqi's-'R-Us or whoever does it under contract at most airports, but the actual GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES.

And there are a lot of them. There were six TSA screeners to cover this US Airways flight which was a small jet, so there weren't that many people even getting on it.

The TSA people are VERY thorough. The guy who was, you should pardon the expression, "doing" me, actually almost DID me as he was checking for metal at the front of my khakis.

TIP FOR TRAVELLERS: I think this must be a new rule, but it turns out that when a screener is touching you in "the bad place" you are not supposed to make moaning and kissing sounds while rolling your eyes.

Who knew?

Anyway he wanded me down the front of my shirt and, of course, the wand went off because I have a necklace - made of metal - in which I keep about a half dozen nitroglycerine tablets. I dutifully lifted up the necklace and the wand STILL went off.

I know: Why do they make grammas take off their tennis shows and let ME get on a plane with nitro around my neck. I think the wheels of my roll aboard pose a greater risk.

I explained that when I had bypass surgery about four years ago, they laced my breastbone together with the equivalent of bread ties except, I said, I didn't think they had green paper around the outside.

Nevertheless they were still in there and, if you want to know the truth, the first time I saw an x-ray of my chest I was quite concerned.

After I finished explaining all this he kind stared at me for a few seconds and asked if I would open my shirt to show him the scar. He said he understood if I was uncomfortable - now this is a guy who just almost proposed to me checking my zipper for C-4 - but, he shrugged ...

I said as I unbuttoned my shirt, "Are you kidding? When you have a body like mine you're PROUD to show it off!"

I was cleared to enter the jetway amid gales of TSA laughter.

(copyright � 2002 Richard A. Galen)