Leaving on a jet plane (and donn't we all miss John Denver?)

So here I am trying to use my new Mac Book on a booked solid Southwest Airlines flight to Reno. Good thing I lost 30 pounds as I need the extra space so that my arms can at least approximate the dexterity of an alligator.

I am going there in part to attend a 50th birthday party of a friend of my brother in law who has a lot of money - enough cash to be building a log cabin on a small lake near Lake Tahoe that you have to take an Arctic Cat to in winter and an ATV of some sort in summer.

He wanted his privacy. Privacy has never really been as issue for me. People pretty much leave me alone unless I call them. Repeatedly is some cases.

The party will be catered, which seems funny to me - funny until it turns out that one of the servers is a SERIAL KILLER.

Hey, I've seen the movies. Good thing the guests are all are way past our teens. I just hope a black guy was not invited - for his own good. And nobody should fornicate with somebody they just met, which shouldn't be an issue for me.

Part of the party involves an evening at the Cal-Neva, where Sinatra and Roseanne Barr hung out , but not at the same time. So I practiced last night by heading to Dave and Buster's where a buddy had his wife's birthday party.

I came down with adult ADHD just visiting. In case you haven't gone, D & B's (as the faux AC/DC t-shirt available for umpteen redemption coupons calls it) is a sort of kiddie Vegas, a place some folks feel comfortable bringing their kids to play video games, games of chance and basketball pop a shot in return for winning the aforementioned coupons and trading them in for the valuable prizes like the aforementioned black shirt.

It is very noisy, people are smoking and drinking, but it is well worth keeping junior up past his bedtime if you can win disco balls and toy poodle purses.

They don't count your coupons when you turn them in - they weigh them. It's nice to see math at work, but I wonder if cheaters have ever tried to slightly wet the tickets in order to get a better prize, say an Elvis souvenir.

The two most out of place people: an old woman at the bar who looked like Bette Davis, smoking a cigarette, sipping a mixed drink; and a guy who looked like Harry Dean Stanton but skinnier, which is to say clinically dead.

Scarier still: A guy who kept playing pop a shot, each toss a perfect swish, his only enemy the clock. There was no joy on his face as the machine spit out tickest, just the look of a man on a mission, sort of like that operant conditioned chicken from the Psych 101 video, but in a sleeveless t-shirt.

I played that game until he showed up, because, quite frankly, it was uncomfortable being near him in the way you don't want to be working out next to the guy at the gym who grunts.

While I had fun, I had to drag my ass out of bed in the morning for my uncle's, where I left my car, and then Midway Airport.

Good thing I stuffed my suitcases the day before. I pack worse than a teenage girl from Napervillle. Let's just say it's a good thing I don't have a need for hair care products. And that unlike a pal of mine I didn't have to remember the Clinique skin and sun products, No clerk is that cute.

But it's fall, I am going to the mountains and that means I need a coat, sweatshirts, a flannel, a couple pairs of shoes, shorts, a swimsuit, workout clothes, enough underwear for a week, t-shirts, socks, a hat. It adds up.

And I had to shower, and exfoliate, and check the locks, and check e-mail, and surf the Internet, and double check what I packed, and load the car, and make sure I had all the cords I need to recharge batteries, and before you know it the time is 10 a.m.

Not so bad but that there was construction on Sunday morning. Rather, there was a stretch along I-355 down to one lane for a couple miles as a crew of two removed barricades. Sometimes I think they just do this to screw with people, making them late for church, much less a flight.

For therapy I pounded on the interior roof of my Camry and cursed out the State of Illinois and its corrupt bureaucracy. Oh, I also got pissed at some asshole who rode my ass, then passed me. So I followed him until my speedometer hit 110 mph. I am not making that up. This jerk was going 120, easy, and I quickly pulled back.

I was in a dark, Irish, Eugene O'Neill kind of mood by the time I got to my uncle's house.

I finally relaxed at the airport bar where the waitress swore matter of factly, like a Springer guest but without the anger. She has to card everybody, which has allowed her to develop the skill of guessing everyone's age. I told her to tell people she needed to see ID for Homeland Security purposes. If someone's on a watch list, say you are out of vodka then head to the back and call for help.

I struck up a conversation with an HR Block guy from Tampa via New Jersey who was heading to Kansas City for a training session. My bad morning paled next to his - sporting a scratched cheek and bruised ribs, he had been is a car accident on the way to the airport, missed his flight, and was stuck in Chicago for an hour or so waiting for a connection. Plus, he's a New York Jets fan, which is painful in its own right.

Then I had to wait in one of those Southwest holding lines like a 210 pound cow and got one of the last sets on the plane. Why can't they just give out beepers like at Bennigan's and page you to get on board?