Summer Holiday

Summer Holidays are great. You have your hopes all set for a vacation of fun and relaxation. You want to escape to a tropical location of twittering birds and endless seaside sunsets viewed from a smooth soft sandy beach.

Sounds good. So what do you have to do? Pick the spot, book your plane tickets, pack your bags and take off, right? Sure, its going to be a fantastic getaway from stress, traffic, and unreasonable office tasks.

Now although I’d been saving all year, my handsome stash of holiday cash has been reduced by life’s unpredictable spending habits. But that’s fine, because I can still have fun on a budget with a few small, tiny, miniscule sacrifices. So as I call the airlines to get bookings and ticket prices, the nice lady on the other side informs me that I will have to sell my kidney and my first born child, in order to sit in the fancy shmancy first class seats. So I think, who needs first class? I’m a world traveler, and so I book the economy seats, excited at the prospect of roughing it.

After all, it’s only for a little while and then all that extra money I saved can be spent on straw hats with delicately balanced fruit or hideous shirts featuring Hawaiian scenery.

And it finally arrives; the day my trip begins. At the airport I stand in line with my clean, well-kept luggage, ready to check in. I’m excited and happy for about five minutes but eventually the eager moose behind me has dented my ankle a few times too many with his trolley of seven bags, and I begin to wish I could slap him silly with my tickets and passport. Suppressing those nasty feelings of rage, I turn around and forcefully smile at him, as if to announce: “I’m still sane, but hit me one more time and you’ll be admiring the leather sole of my shoe.”

After what seems like a week later, I arrive at the economy counter and inform the clerk that an aisle seat is all I want for the 8 hour trip. And so he kindly gives me seat 32 G which is almost in the toilets between 2 other seats, explaining in a recording-like voice that the plane is full. But I don’t let that get to me, tomorrow I’ll be on the beach.

I settle into my so called “seat”, study the safety procedure intently as if for a test, and then try to find out what movie it is that they’re playing today. Oh. I have no screen. They seem to have traded the cool plane I saw in the brochure with personal TV’s and remote controls for this bus turned airplane thing. I’ll just have to share that tiny screen 10 rows ahead . I hopelessly fish around in the pocket in front of me for a pair of binoculars, soon realizing that I won’t be watching Jack shit.

I’m handed the earphones, and get excited again. But in order to plug the jack into the side of my seat, I have to do a strange yoga position to self levitate and then live with it digging into my leg for the rest of the journey. Who designed these seats? The Marquis de Sade??? And so I opt to read.

I’m just about to start fishing for my book, when I see that people are still settling into their seats and I look around for my future rowmates, wishing for a pair of extremely skinny introverts who don’t chat to their neighbors and enjoy tucking their elbows on the inside of their arm rests.

My neighbors arrive. One, is a large man in a studded leather jacket, a back pack, and a bag of McDonalds. The other is a meek looking grandmother pulling along a four year old. The child is holding onto a large bar of chocolate the size of a laptop and it is melting. Let the fun begin.

As Mr. Big sits next to me taking off his jacket, he exposes a tattoo on his arm in greenish lettering, informing me that he is a lover not a fighter. I say goodbye to my elbow room and sit like a freshly boiled lobster not really knowing what to do with my limbs.

Granny sits in the seat at the end, while Galaxy boy looks up at me grinning, consuming his chocolate bar by applying to his mouth as a lipstick. He thinks it’s funny. I feel my biological clock screaming to a stop. I shrink back in horror as he wipes the melted goo of his hands onto his jeans, the blanket and his Grandmother’s arm.

“Ma’am, would you like some orange juice or a soft drink?” suggests a sweet looking stewardess.

“Do you have anything that could induce a safe, controlled coma, some anesthesia perhaps?” I ask hopefully.

Confused she hands me a Seven-up and moves on. And so I sip it calmly while, Big man eats his cheese burgers, elbows out and greasy fries scattered all over his folding table.

I take a deep breath and close my eyes. If I don’t look at them, they may eventually disappear.

It is approximately four hours after take off, that I begin to build a case against the airline industry. My alleged seat is now pissing me off. I think of nudging Leather Jacket awake to ask if he has some tape measure in his back pack. I’m quite positive that the width of my chair, is about 15 cm and that it’s under the legal requirements of humanity. Junior has overdosed on sugar and seems to be rehearsing for his part in River Dance, lord of the Dance. His grandmother had passed out some time ago.

After some back tracking in my head as to how I got myself into this hellish nightmare, I realize that what was small, tiny, and miniscule, was not my budgetary sacrifice, but in fact, my living space for the next four hours.

At some odd hour, an undefined meal is served, and I choose the chicken, thinking at least I can kill some time, eating. However, as I begin to savor the plane cuisine (pun intended), a sharp pain in my knees alerts me that the passenger in front has reclined all the way back to take a nap. And if that’s not enough, he violently bounces himself to flatten out that odd bump; my knee, into a comfortable position several times, until he has ensured that my clothes are also getting the nutrition that they need.

Picking out the peas from my lap with one hand, and nursing my knees back to health with the other, I fight my new-found psychotic tendencies and choose not to kill him as that will mean I will be taken away in hand cuffs at the door of the plane. Instead I sit, seething in my ridiculously small seat, quietly wishing the reclining monkey a severe bout of food poisoning on his vacation.

Looking at my watch I’m relieved to see that there are 2 hours left till landing. However my bladder is notifying me that if it is not taken to the bathrooms soon, it will cause a scene. I glance behind me at the little red bathroom men and look hopelessly at the queue several passengers and 5 children long.

Up ahead in first class, caviar is being served to the passengers by personal butlers, while angels play on harps to gently wake them up. It’s probably not that crowded there. So I squeeze uncomfortably past Leather Jacket in order to avoid Dennis the Menace and Co. making my way to the front of the plane.

“I’m sorry maam, you can’t use the bathrooms here.” Snaps the same previously sweet stewardess.

“I see. There’s a long queue back there and…” I begin to explain politely.

“Please wait back there. These are for First Class passengers only.” She interrupts.

I begin to feel like a peasant who wanted to eat at the table with his feudal lord. It seems that if another word came out of my mouth, I was going to be escorted by security to the luggage compartment of the plane and kept there for the remainder of the flight.

As I pretend to walk away. Witch woman is summoned by someone up front who wants a foot rub and an ice cream sundae.

I take that chance to sneak into the “first class” toilet, and expect that this heavily guarded compartment would be clad in marble and gold sink fixtures. At the least I’d think that you could turn 360° without hitting a smelly toilet bowl or a sticky wall. But no, you must experience the full pleasure of the mile high club. Ech!

Anyway, sneaking out from behind the door, I tip toe back, only to find the air witchess glaring me in the face.

“I thought I told you not to use that bathroom” she hisses with her hands on her hips.

“Well, would you prefer that I pee in my seat?” I retort, getting angry again.

“I’ve already told you it’s reserved for our first…”

“Too late, no refunds!” I interrupt as I make my way past her.

I have to remember to do this more often, it was satisfying to defy the queen of the loo.

If you want to wish hell on someone, wish them an eternal flight in my seat with witch lady and the smelly bathroom.

We finally land, and I sit there as every grumpy member of the tail section, puts themselves back together and starts to gather their belongings ready to depart. I don’t move. I will not recreate a pilgrimage experience, by squeezing between chocolate boy and Hell’s angel.

Once the entire plane is cleared out I make my way out into the terminal and the feelings of resentment that had built up on the 8 hour ride, start to melt away as I see outside the blue skies and sea and palm trees inviting me into a blissful week of relaxation and fun.

I fish around for my passport to show it to the immigration control officer and flash him a sweet “I’m no terrorist” smile. I hand him my passport as I start to see myself on the beach with my book and pina colada, when my thoughts are interrupted suddenly.

“Where is visa?!”

“Visa? What visa?”

“NO ENTRY FOR YOU! NO VALID VISA! OFFICER, TAKE ILLEGAL GIRL BACK TO PLANE!”

I think I passed out at this point, but that’s another story.