I was trying to get around on foot today, and feel the need to rant. (What else is new right?)

Even with the skywalks, crossing Las Vegas Boulevard and getting around town on foot is not always easy.

One of the worst things about living in a tourist town, is that a larger number of tourists come from places where the marvels of modern technology have not yet been introduced.

Like … the escalator.

Now, I thought that the escalator was common practically everywhere, but apparently its usage is highly variable.

Back on the East Coast, the universal practice was “stand on the right, walk on the left”. Much like a highway.

But Vegas is the great melting pot exception, as usual. Invariably, people park themselves on any part of the moving steps, and begrudgingly refuse to move. Apparently they think it’s a thrill ride, because they want to stay on the damn thing as long as possible.

My yells of “Excuse Me!” are usually met with stares of “Who is that asshole talking to?”

Yes, it’s a tourist town, but it’s still a town.

Some people still have a schedule, and some of us have already seen the thong lady on the Bally’s billboard seventeen hundred times and don’t need to stare at her ass crack for the entire ride up.

If the Bellagio Fountain Show is starting in 2 minutes, and I want to videotape it, please get your fat, lazy ass out of my way and stand to the right. I would do the same for you.

And I won’t even get started on the parties of six people who walk down the sidewalk six abreast. Okay, maybe I’ll get started just a little bit.

In what part of the country are you goat fuckers from where the entire sidewalk is dedicated to you and your group of people only?

Does the entire group have to walk side by side, taking up the whole walkway between the street and the wall?

Seriously, where do you expect the other people to walk? Are they supposed to stay home that day because it is your family’s “Vegas Walking Day”?

And why do I get a dirty look when I try to break your human chain?

I’m NOT going to walk in the street simply to avoid breaking the congruity of your scaled down rendition of “Hands Across America”.

On urban sidewalks, you walk single file … or maybe two people side by side at the most.

And if you get on an escalator, and have no intention of using any of your own energy to propel yourself vertically … stand to the right.

We’re not all in such awe of the metal people lifter as you are. It merely cuts our climbing time in half. Let us use it.

Stand to the goddamn right!

That’s really about all I have to say right now.