Allow me to introduce myself — Sarah D. Bunting, CD-ROM development editrix by day, heckler at life’s rich pageant by night.Below, the sad true tale of my trip to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada — a city neither kid-tested nor mother-approved.I have changed no names to protect the innocent, ’cause everyone’s a whore in Vegas.Watch this space for more tuff adventures…

DAY ONE

Dear Friends,

A higher power has evidently decided to punish me — for what, I do not know.But regardless of my sin, I have returned to the Land of a Million Hookers, the Mecca of housedress-wearing Elvis-chasers the world over, a city conceived and driven by crooked men with crooked teeth.I’m back in Vegas, baby — but getting here wasn’t easy.

The car service doesn’t show up on time, naturally; however, my driver proves to be an efficient sort.After a good-natured chicken fight with a UPS truck, we arrive at LaGuardia with many minutes to spare.My boss materializes a few places ahead of me in line, muttering to himself in German; I body-check a few people out of the way in order to stand beside him and am rewarded for my perspicacity by his switching to English: “A whole suitcase?For three days?Girls — I struggle to understand how they pack.”I patiently explain to him that my computer, and the twenty pounds of proposals that I brought because I knew he would forget and then blame me and force me to pay for the office to fax them, take up most of the room in said suitcase.He chooses not to respond to this comment.

I find the smoking lounge; for the privilege of using it, I must buy the most expensive pretzel on the Eastern seaboard.Then we board the plane.I have looked forward to first class for days, but now I find it annoying.Whenever I drop off to sleep, the bimbos bring me something else: “Complimentary cocktail?Cashews?Fajita or cheese pizza?Cabernet or Chardonnay?Hot towel?Mint?Butterscotch?Bong hit?Ribbed or extra thin?”Go AWAY, bitch — I’m trying to depressurize over here.The airline magazine’s crossword is really hard.My boss flirts with the bimbos and reads Martial Arts Gazette; during lunch, he fills me in on company gossip.Bong hit, please.

We land in O’Hare, evidently the home of the U.S.’s finest hot dogs.We don’t have a chance to try one because I am sprinting around looking for a nicotine-friendly spot, which doesn’t appear.My boss informs me that I should quit smoking.I politely tell him to shut the fuck up or I’ll slit the cartilage that separates his nostrils.Back onto the plane, which is running late because the ground crew is running over my luggage repeatedly in the hopes of reducing my computer to a pile of silicon.

New bimbo comes out.I accept some Cabernet and submit to the in-flight movie, Waterworld, which I watch because it is free.Yes, Costner’s gills really do look like little vaginas.It occurs to me that, in a $200-million budget, perhaps they could have spent more than $2.39 on the dialogue.They interrupt the movie several times to keep us informed on Nevada weather patterns (“the temperature has plummeted to 54 degrees”) and to tell us that the paramedics will have to come in and get some moron in the back before the rest of us are allowed to deboard.My boss shoots me a concerned look; I smile reassuringly while attempting to light the airsick bag.

At last, we land.The moron is rescued.My luggage is rescued.In the smoking lounge, my boss is rescued.He plays slots while I polish off a Camel or two.We take a limo to the Excalibur, which looks like a Playskool castle designed by Paul Bunyan.During the ride, my boss recommends that we catch Siegfried and Roy “before they die of AIDS.”

I have to meet my boss in the bar in ten minutes, which fortunately saves me from the medieval decor in here.The fake brick wallpaper doesn’t line up, but I’m “thrilled” to report that the water is hot.

DAY TWO

“You gotta know when to hold ’em”

Day One ended with a trip to Circus Circus’s steakhouse, voted the best in Las Vegas ten years in a row or some damn thing.I was so tired by that time that all I remember is that the chives were fresh.You don’t care, but I think that’s cool.I collapsed into bed, but not before my boss had spotted a bungee-jumping tower and challenged my honor.”You will do it,” he said, in that version of English that Germans have which makes sense in English, but is not what they really mean to say.”I will treat you to a bungee jump, and you will jump, I promise you.”Ten percent curiosity, five percent stupidity, and eighty-five precent unwillingness to hear my boss tell everyone we both know for the rest of my tenure at Holtzbrinck Electronic Publishing that I wimped out of bungee jumping made me agree.”We Got A Love That’s Bigger Than The Beatles” played softly as I submitted to my doom.Big bed, no boyfriend, and a long day ahead tomorrow.

“Know when to fold ’em”

The wake-up call — ask not, it tolls for me at 7:45.My boss is easier on me than I am.I watch The Today Show, and they show footage of the same New Year’s Eve Vegas hold-up, the one where the stick-up guy put the gun down on the counter to snag some Raisinets and got shot in the ass by the clerk, that they showed on CNN last night.Then Bryant Gumbel shows me all the cool shit from CES; yeah, I’m REAL motivated to leave my room now.

Boss and I go to Harrah’s for breakfast and a meeting.Vegas by day looks smaller and more afraid; its shouts sound raspy and old.I drink four cups of coffee for some reason.Our meeting doesn’t happen.We jump in a cab and wind up at the Sands Convention Center — Comdex rerun.Prodigy has wedged a purple and green “magic” bus onto the display floor.We talk to the Microstar people; they shoot us down.I talk to the Avalon Hill lady; she shoots me down.My boss makes appointments with everyone in the multimedia pavilion in one hour; I stand by, smiling decoratively.The women assume that I speak no English, and speak slowly and loudly to me.The men do the same thing because I have big tits, so I must be not only a trollop but a total moron as well.

At last I suggest that we split up until lunchtime.Is it a coincidence that I run into him by the “Catfight” arcade game?I think not.We watch two chicks try to kill each other, then part ways again.I ramble around through the karaoke and the Cher impersonators, filling up my Compaq tote with flyers from the info-edu-kinder-tainment companies.So, I think to myself…now I understand what it is to be stoned to death.Cigarette time.

I do nothing productive or relevant during our Sands visit except pull up my sagging tights every few minutes.I find myself looking forward to my bungee jump, hoping that the cord will snap and I will splatter away from all of this, flat and peaceful, high heels shattered in a slick of my tired and nicotine-poor blood.I think all of this in the space of two cigs, then hike up my Donna Karans and go back inside.”Bust A Move” plays somewhere nearby.If you pray, pray for me.

“Know when to walk away”

We leave for the hotel.After an argument with my modem, I lipstick myself and head out for a series of evening schmoozefests.The first one, at Caesar’s Palace, bites so hard I need stitches.Herbie Hancock is the musical entertainment; our hosts suck up to him.We depart rapidly, snickering.However, this means that we get stuck at the Computer Game Developer’s Association fajita party for two hours, in a klatch so stultifyingly boring that I take three cigarette breaks.My boss grills them mercilessly; they look to me for help, and I can’t save them.I shrug and refer vaguely to distribution agreements, trailing off ineffectually while signaling with my eyes that I feel their pain, that my interview was just like this except that there wasn’t beer and I had to sit in an unfurnished office on a crate while my boss inquired about my drinking habits.My boss rolls over their attempts to escape like a Panzer tank.He got a fresh crew-cut this morning; one woman at our table stares at his gleaming skull, her mouth slightly open in horror.I am so utterly uninterested in this entire encounter that even now I can’t remember the name of the company.Bong hit, please.

“Know when to run”

Somehow we are back at the Excalibur.We sit down at a blackjack table.One guy a few chairs over works for Microsoft, and reports that Mrs. Gates is his boss, and is pregnant, and no, the rumors of Big Bilbo designing a game that his girlfriends would have to play and whoever figured it out would get a marriage proposal on the final screen are not true, to his knowledge.This man told his three-year-old daughter that he was in the City of Sin for the weekend, and she started crying.I don’t know why he shares this with us.Our dealer, Shirley, tries to talk me out of several double-down bets on twelves.My table has horrendous luck.After Boss’s third trip to the ATM, I call it quits, having lost the Christmas bonus that I didn’t even get.As I ride up in the elevator, I hear employees paged; they are referred to as “Lords and Ladies,” and the bathrooms are labeled “Princes,” “Duchesses,” and so on.I realize as I reach my room that the only fun part of today was sharing a fruit cocktail with a cab driver who thought my blonde streak was real.

DAY THREE

Please, God, let it end.

The day dawns with a call from my boss at 7:30.He wants to know, “Well?Shall we meet for breakfast in one half hour?”I ask for a full hour; he snorts.Later, I wonder what the rush was, since breakfast spans two hours, gossip about various colleagues, and six cups of coffee each.In line for a table, we run into Microsoft Guy from the blackjack table last night.My boss says that MG is in charge of Microsoft’s reference line, and that I should invite him out to drinks at a topless bar.I try to ignore this suggestion.I percolate up to my room to grab my badge and we hit the road.

As we march into the convention center, I realize several things about the attendees: 1) there are people wearing retainers; 2) CES folk come in one color — white, white, baby; 3) I can picture most of these people standing at the edge of the dance floor at Webster Hall, nodding in time with a Kool & The Gang ditty and yelling to each other, “New York!Crazy, huh?”

We chat with Packard Bell Guy.PBG reminds me of my church youth-group leader from high school.He lets us know several times that Packard Bell has a 54-percent market share.To what do we owe the honor?I play Sanctuary Woods’s seductive “Lion” game to comfort myself.Then Boss and I head over to the Las Vegas Convention Center.We pass Microsoft Guy again in the cab line.Boss says that this is an omen.I smoke a cigarette.

Cars line the floor.Glazed girls in sequins spin Wheels of Fortune.We eat a disgusting lunch and drink more coffee.I think that both my boss and I fear death of boredom, but won’t admit it to each other, and drink great quantities of nasty coffee to drown the denial.I spot my first Elvis impersonator; my mother looks more like Elvis than this guy does.My boss drags me to the Microsoft room.You can roll a pair of fuzzy dice to win a Microsoft Station.We leave.

(Yes, the whole day goes on like this.We go places.They suck.We leave.We try to act as though we make progress with people we meet.We drink coffee and consult the CES bulletin.We find other places.They bite.We flee.)

My feet throb to the rhythm of “Friends In Low Places” as we jump into yet another cab.I have discussed the Tyson fight with every damn driver in Vegas; this one suggests that we throw Don King into the ring.I have so much caffeine in my bloodstream by this time that I could kick Don King’s ass to the curb in under a minute while smoking a cigarette and talking on the phone at the same time.I’ll bring the gift of gravity to that hairdo, I’ll tell you what — let’s get ready to rumble, baby.(Bong hit, please.)

After returning to the hotel, I take a nap, just to remind myself that it’s a Saturday.

Dinnertime.Since I failed to get tickets to Penn & Teller, I have to go to a business dinner.My hangover has caught a second wind and I don’t want to deal, but I troop to the Camelot restaurant.A wedding is just letting out of the Canterbury Chapel across the hall.Our dinner lasts longer than the reception, which involves numerous string ties and hairstyles that bring the words “clown poof” to mind.However, I do learn during the course of the meal that the Prodigy rented the “magic bus” from Jon Bon Jovi, and that casinos carpet their floors in busy patterns on purpose, to disorient the gamblers.

What else can I say?Las Vegas has no clocks, no windows, no sense of its own monstrous nature; it welcomes old currency home to die.I refer you to the Canterbury Wedding Chapel brochure:

“Once in a lifetime one visits chapels as grand as Canterbury.Surely this is a place of hallowed matrimony.”

What opium addict wrote the copy for this leaflet?Oh well — at least they offer a wide range of wedding packages: Canterbury (basic quickie action — chapel fee, traditional wedding music, flowers for the bride and groom, photo pack, free bottle of Excalibur champagne); Camelot (flowers thrown in for wedding party, more pix); Sacred Charm (even more pix, one night in the hotel with continental breakfast); and Holy Grail (more photos than you want to commemorate this pathetic event, a video in case you missed the pathos in the still shots, two Excalibur “ceremonial chalices,” two nights in the hotel, free dinner which does not include alcohol).Hey, kids — no blood test! no waiting period! you can pay the not-included-in-package minister fee AFTER the ceremony — what a relief! and they keep the wedding pic negatives on file for six (6) [sic] months!

If you must do the tacky thang, though, why not do it all the way?How about the Bunting wedding package — for $100, you get a representative of the religious denomination of your choice (Joe Camel yarmulke $5 additional); “God Save The Queen,” rendered on kazoo by a former member of the Baton Rouge Philharmonic; makeup for the bride by Robert Smith; one picture with the heads cut off, so they can’t prove anything; the Trojan Variety Pak; two dixie cups; a fifth of Wild Turkey; a shiny new 1996 quarter to call a lawyer the next day; and a Valium prescription for your mom.

Tomorrow, I come home to frigid, snowy New York.Las Vegas?Buh-bye.

DAY FOUR

Dateline Dallas (or, “Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back To The Airport”)

Before I begin my daily diatribe, a world news note: I notice that every time I travel to Las Vegas, a political figure dies.On my last trip, Rabin was assassinated; yesterday, Francois Mitterand succumbed to prostate cancer.If they send me west again, maybe we’ll catch a break and I’ll inadvertently kill Newt Gingrich.

The business dinner of Day Three included — what a surprise! — too much coffee; I didn’t get to sleep till 3 in the morning.My wakeup call comes in at 7:30 and I set about stuffing 18 pounds of useless CES literature into my suitcase.Breakfast with my boss tests my nerves; I feel like ass, I have to face 7 hours on various planes today, and my boss has lost his voice — but alas, it doesn’t stop him from whisper-yelling at me about the number of New York phone calls charged to my room (must have been the maid, I dissemble, avoiding eye contact).We bundle into the final cab of the trip.I give my boss some Ricola and drop him off at the Sands.As the car pulls away from the curb, I mutter, “Yeeeeeeah…fuck you.”

The curb at the airport is a barely-controlled circus — while I am checking my bag, a Volkswagen pulls up and 48 clowns get out (“Phoenix, yuk yuk yuk!”).The airline rep informs me that New York is closed.I decide to fly to Dallas anyway and put from there (get it?Cowboys? punt? oh, fuck you).McCarran airport has a mysterious hum about it, beneath the clattering of the gate-side slot machines, the hum of several thousand people saying “fuck ME” over and over again out loud, as I am doing while waiting for the AT&T operator to get her shit together.

I call my ex-boyfriend, whose family lives in Dallas, and he agrees to get the ball rolling with his mother.It occurs to me,too late, that a rescue by my ex’s mom could turn out more strange and terrible than Oz, but I have no choice; I cannot bring myself to drink airport coffee for two days.Then I phone up my faithful sister in crime/vinyl advisor to the stars/cat-sitter at the Pleasure Palace.Her roommate, who goes by the Indian name Heaven In Leather Pants, answers.Put yer squaw on, I say; I’m stuck in the great Southwest and she’s gonna have to tie some rackets onto her feet and snowshoe over to feed my cat.Faithful Sister picks up.

Sister: Yo baby.Where are you?Bunting: I’m stuck in the great Southwest and you’re gonna have to tie some tennis rackets onto your feet and snowshoe over to feed my cat.Sister [wants to say, “Bunting, don’t take this the wrong way,but it’s snowing and I’m hungover, so fuck you”]: Um, well, we have no visibility here, but when we do, I’ll try to get over to your apartment.Bunting [considers offering meal made from aforementioned cat as incentive]: Okay.

I call my mother and then my ex again and then I get on the plane and the bottle blonde in front of me leans all the way back in her seat and does the rhumba on my lap trying to get comfy.I drive a knee into her left kidney.She turns around and snarls, “Do you mind?”I tell her, smiling so that my canines gleam, that yes, as a matter of fact, I do mind.Fuck you!She turns around and shuts up.I devour my delicious meal of fat-free, salt-free, taste-free pretzels.

My ex’s mom meets me at the gate.We go to the baggage area and my bag does not come and does not come.An attendant tells me that the bag probably didn’t make my flight, despite the fact that I checked in 3 full hours before my flight and sat sulking quietly in the McCarran Burger King.The next flight from Vegas comes in in an hour,the attendant says; the baggage area for that flight is in a different terminal entirely.Ex’s Mom and I drive over there.No bag.Feebly, I offer the cheery sentiment that it could be much worse; I could have changed planes in Sarajevo, for instance, or they could have broken my computer and read my journal over the PA system, instead of just losing them forever and leaving me bereft of both communication capability and creative outlet.Fuck you!

Still no bag.They can’t find it.American Airlines blames me.I light my short fuse and tell the broomhead behind the counter that I understand the situation isn’t his fault personally, but that I will take my anger out on him nonetheless.After some browbeating, Broomhead twitches his apologetic little moustache and magnanimously agrees to deliver the bag if it ever shows up.Well, thank you SO MUCH for doing the minimum required of you by law, I feel so much BETTER about having no deodorant, no comb, and NO idea where my personal possessions have wound up, have a VERY nice evening and FUCK YOU.

By now, I have spent nearly 3 hours in the Dallas-Fort Worth airport.Ex’s mom and I get in the car; I feel like a wet noodle, the day has beaten me down that hard.We stop at a Target store; I buy underwear and a nightshirt and a toothbrush that costs $3, and I wonder why this crap inevitably happens to me.I was not previously aware that karma could be not just good or bad, but annoying also; who was I in a past life — Regis?We stagger in the front door; two yapping poodles serenade me.I call home yet again to let them know I have arrived in one piece.I give them the update.My father tells me to stop complaining.Stop complaining?I have to wear the same outfit until the next Brady reunion, and you want me to stop complaining?FUCK YOU!(“No, what about YOU, Dad?…FUCK YOU!”)FUCK ALL OF YOU!GIVE ME THAT BONG HIT RIGHT NOW!!!!!

I storm outside, smoke several dozen cigarettes, storm back inside, clamber over the child security gate that prevents the poodles from annoying my ex’s baby nephew to death, and crawl into the bed to mourn the loss of my worldly belongings.Tomorrow, Elvis will turn 61.Thousands of people will keep a vigil at the gates of Graceland, and somewhere in Big Sky Country, Big E will watch them on Direc-TV with a Pabst Blue Ribbon in one hand and a deep-fried peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich in the other, saying, “Thank you, ma’am…thank you very much.”I fall asleep and dream that Elvis and my boss’s mistress have brought my luggage home to me.

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