The problem with this particular trip is that I'm travelling without a United States media visa - essential to guarantee the jobbing journo entry into the States - so not only do I need to fool my contemporaries with whatever elaborate character I create, I also need to fool customs, and customs always know who you are.
United States customs are notoriously tough. They don't just check your name and check your passport. They take your finger prints and they chat to you about your family, your schooling, your suitcase and even where you bought the corkscrew you used to open last night's 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon. In the queue, as my new pals, who I will call Journo and Journette, get acquainted, I remain silent. Thumbing through my mind's creative file, I think hard to fabricate some sort of believable story as to why I might have come to Vegas on my own with little more than a hundred dollars - and how I got talking to these two people in the queue, despite not sitting anywhere near them on the plane.
Luckily, if you can call it luck, I have been in this very same mess on one occasion before. Two years ago I blagged another press trip, this time to Florida, to review a new roller coaster. It was the first time I'd done anything like it. First time I'd been abroad on my own, first time I'd been given anything notable for nothing and the first time I was guaranteed to get a full byline on a double-page review in a national newspaper - things seemed to be going well.
Things, however, stopped going well about the time I rang the PR company to triple-check that I had everything sorted.
"Will this printed email really get me onto a jumbo jet?" I asked the nice girl, who was a different nice girl to the nice girl I had been dealing with during the lead up to the trip over the last few weeks.
"Yes, that's all in order Mr Jeoffroy," confrimed the Nice Girl, before dropping a bombshell that sent me into a tailspin before take-off… "I see you've filled out your ESTA form, you have your ticket and your itinerary, just make sure you don't forget your media visa."
"Sorry… my what?" I asked.
"Your media visa, you'll need it to enter the country."
A silence fell over the phone call which, in hindsight, was probably pretty comical. At the time, the cooling systems that stop me from over-reacting were going into meltdown. Was I about to see my big break as a writer soar off across the Atlantic ocean without me?
"Wait, you mean that, apart from the passport detailing exactly who I am, and the online form explaining the very spot in which I'll be sleeping, they also need to know the reason I want to go on the rides? Sorry, but Nice Girl No.1 neglected to mention anything about a media visa."
"OK, that's not a problem Mr Jeoffroy," said Nice Girl No.2 before falling quiet. I wasn't convinced. To me, it seemed like there was a massive problem, not in life's grand scheme or the great order of things, but certainly if I could have been said to have a plan, this looked capable of scuppering it - especially as my only contact had just hung up the phone on me.
Nice Girl had still neglected to say anything further, prompting me to ask if she was still there.
"Yes, yes, I'm here," she replied, "I'm just thinking. Can I call you back? I could do with speaking to you on a secure connection." With that, the line went dead. What the hell had I let myself in for? A secure connection? Had I just unwittingly muttered an MI:5 code word? Was I about to be bundled into a van, sped to an unknown location and given a top-secret, life-or-death mission?
Not quite. But not far off. When she called back I was told I was just going to have to "tell a little white lie at customs".
"A ha ha ha," I laughed in an over-the-top manner as if to say, "Very funny, stop joking around." But it turns out Nice Girl No.2 was very serious indeed and, whilst she admitted she has never been in this predicament herself, she was certain it would be fine just "don't let on you're a journalist, whatever you do."
To my relief, she was correct. For ten minutes only I was Dan Jeoffroy, a fire-safety officer over for a team-building exercise at Florida's theme parks... although the burly customs man-machine was clearly aware of the beads of sweat forming on my guilty brow as I stumbled over my well-rehearsed monologue.
*****
So why do I find myself in exactly the same predicament this time round? The horror stories document crestfallen columnists being frog-marched back onto the plane and deported without laying down so much as a footprint on American soil. Well, ideally, and obviously, I would have liked not to have had to go through it all again but this trip crept up on me so unexpectedly and at such short notice that I barely had time to pack, let alone file for a media visa.
FROM NOTES This time round I'm Dan Jeoffroy, gambler and sightseer. Don't let on you're a journalist, whatever you do. This is still a concern. These brutes are trained to spot a fibber - even a trained fibber. This is why I haven't mentioned my profession earlier. God forbid, if I was unlucky enough to be a random bag check and they read through these notes, I'd have been doomed. Thrown into the dank cell block until a seat back to Gatwick could be found - probably via Salt Lake City or Idaho. Not Indiana, please not Indiana.
Anyway, I'm close to the front of the queue and I've got my story ready - I'm here on leisure, using up holiday days I'd amassed by working over Christmas. My fingers were beginning to sweat and I could feel my vocal cords trembling. Calm down, man. Or you'll be spotted in a flash and hauled out quicker than I could say MGM Grand.
Suddenly, my colleague Journo starts babbling to me. He's dressed in a suit and looks like typical press, the brute is bound to know we're travelling together now. I go first - if he takes me down I'm taking everybody with me.
It turns out that a shaky nerve-wracked voice is the norm on arrival in Vegas as amoral businessmen and big fish jet in for a weekend without their wives when they're meant to be tying up haulage contracts in Nova Scotia. So I fitted right in - a big fish, in a wild zoo.
Then, everything goes wrong. "Step aside, Sir. Please put your bags flat on the counter. Just a few quick questions."
Fuck me. A random bag search. If he finds my "Press Trip Itinerary" then I'm a goner. Hell, I could see the tinted windows of the MGM Grand through the sliding doors to my left, twinkling in the afternoon sunshine. It was like being on Alcatraz; civilisation is within touching distance but I'm stuck in here.
"Why are you in Vegas? Who are you here with? Who do you work for? How much money have you brought with you?"
A barrage of questions fired from a verbal scattergun. The intent is to fire holes in my story left, right and centre and see if the thing still holds water. I've managed to claim that I'm here on leisure but without my girlfriend, I'd enjoy a gamble but I've only got 100 dollars on me and that I work for a national newspaper but am in now way, by any means, any sort of journalist whatsoever - basically, my once-watertight biography was now leaking from every orifice.
"That's it Sir," says Brute No.2. "Enjoy your trip." Hell, he didn't even look in the bag - that was close. Too close for slippers.
I wandered round the corner to see Journo and Journette breathe a sigh of relief as they stand at the exit with our driver. From here on, this weekend I'm Dan Jeoffroy, blagger extraordinaire and wannabe high roller. I looked up, shut my eyes and sighed relief into the Vegas sunshine - then climbed into the waiting limousine.
next chapter...
Customs would likely work me out at some stage in the next few minutes, but if I make it til sundown, I can shake them off in the neon abyss of The Strip. I climed into the stretched limousine
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