Getting tossed from the VIP lounge at Reno's Peppermill casino

Regular readers of TravelGolf.com may be shocked to hear this, but I’m not usually a VIP Room kind of guy. Sure, Donald Trump calls. And Rush Limbaugh blathers on about the time we spent together on the radio (no, it wasn’t in the Dominican Republic).

But the Entourage guys aren’t inviting me to their wrap parties. Carson Daly’s been a little cold since he moved the show back to LA. Heck, I haven’t even been asked to join Britney Spears’ team of mannies (male nannies).

So it’s no little deal when I’m being ushered into the VIP Check-in Lounge at Reno’s Peppermill casino. OK, it’s Reno. And the only reason I’m even sniffing high roller treatment is because I’m tagging along with Phil Weidigner - a PR pro’s pro who worked for the San Francisco 49ers back long before 49er PR guys started making videos that get them fired - and John Hamilton - a KGO-AM San Francisco radio lifer who usually has the highest salary of everyone in the room and never lets anyone know it.

So I’m being ushered into the VIP wonderlands - going though doors where a craziness of excess surely awaits. Where the drinks are a little stronger, the women are a lot more beautiful and everyone treats you like that waiter at the restaurant who thinks he’s recognized some B-list celebrity but cannot quite place the face.

OK, we’re walking in. No one’s ushering us anywhere. But then … we are being ushered, or more accurately scooted and shooed, right out.

Yes, the VIP Check-In Lounge is as dark as Hitler’s heart at about … oh, 8:57 p.m. in the evening. A kid in a suit who looks like he just went to first kegger last weekend is showing us the door. Or more accurately, pointing at it in an eager, The Neighbor Mr. Wilson manner.

It turns out the VIP Lounge at the Peppermill keeps time like a Swiss banker.

Even George Costanza got the Model Planet a few nights! I get the bagel shops of VIP Lounges.

So much for the high rolling.