Management
NINE
Metal Detectors and Elephant Shackles
We continue idling along Lambs Valley Road. I know I’m going much slower than the speed limit but there’s just so much scenery for us to take in. Of course, Mum and Dad don’t know which number we’re supposed to be at so they remain oblivious to my little detour. The slower speed also seems to have calmed Mum’s ‘WE’RE GOING TO DIE ANY INSTANT!’ anxiety.
‘We can’t really plan for next Christmas at ours anyway,’ I say, ‘because we may be taking the kids to Canada.’
‘Depending on Covid,’ Jeff adds.
‘Oh yeah,’ Mum says. ‘Well, if Canada is cancelled, you could always join us on the cruise with Grant and Bec and then we’ll all be together.’
‘Ah no, Mum, that’s never gonna happen.’
‘Ugh,’ Jeff confirms.
‘Why not?’
‘It’d be like being stuck on a floating casino for two weeks straight!’ I crinkle my nose.
‘Exactly!’
‘Yes, your mother’ll be right on her own,’ Dad says. ‘I think I’ll come to Canada with you and the kids.’
That thought fills me with untold joy.
I have actually done a lot of travelling with my parents and one thing I have learnt is to always take earplugs, particularly if we’re going through airports. I need the plugs to drown out the sound of my mother’s erratically thumping heartbeat. If Mum’s white coat syndrome is a diagnosed fact, then she’s unquestionably the patient zero of Airport Hypertension Disorder. Her stressing starts days before the security line and continues long after it.
It begins with her luggage. The potential threat of losing her bags is a thought so horrific to Mum that it clouds her ability to enjoy the holiday, from the day of packing to the very last day of unpacking.
Holidays when they were younger never seemed to dredge up such immense anxiety but, these days, the fear of the great unknown, or being somewhere that cannot be controlled or predicted is almost enough for her to swear off travel altogether. If only her son didn’t live overseas, and her grandchildren in a different state, or her brother and sons stopped pressuring her to go on holidays with them.
Mum’s terror at the thought of losing the luggage is so profound you’d think her case contained countless irreplaceable family heirlooms she’d insisted on taking, along with her beloved dog Bronte’s ashes. But no, we’re talking about two hundred dollars’ worth of clothes and toiletries that are all covered by travel insurance, packed into a plain black suitcase that is both fashionable and practical, except that Jude chose one that is about twenty per cent bigger than carry-on size, which means it always has to go into the hold.
Of course, to avoid missing her bag on the conveyor belt, Mum tied a dark purple ribbon to it. The ribbon is barely discernible to the naked eye, and about the size of a lolly wrapper. What do you get when you add a mum to forty-eight identical black bags and a fast-moving luggage carousel?
Forty-seven false alarms.
Pre-September 11, her packing would include a thirty-year-old appliance to heat rollers for her hair. However, because it was made of metal and looked eerily like an explosive device, she was smart enough to stop taking that with her in this modern age of travel. Countless European locals petitioned the decision, as the thought of seeing Mum in the Louvre without freshly curled hair was almost too much for them to bear. Alas, the threat of having it confiscated and lost to her forever was enough to convince Mum that it was better left at home. It did, however, take her another twelve years post-September 11 to comprehend that ‘sharp objects’ include any or all of the following: scissors, sewing scissors, nail scissors, nail files, knitting needles and pocketknives (a gift for Charlie). If you go into the warehouse at Sydney Airport where they store confiscated items, Mum has her own very large box.
Whether leaving home for one day or one month, regardless of the destination or time of year, Mum insists on packing four seasons’ worth of outfits, just in case she encounters an unexpected breeze, be it in Brussels or Brisbane.
Even today she has brought with her a light cardigan just in case the day turns a little breezy in Gloucester.
Weather patterns shouldn’t be a surprise to good old Jude, who always knows, as if by instinct, when a westerly is coming through. Failing that, a quick flare of the nostrils can detect approaching rain, even on the other side of the country.
If she’s visiting Charlie and Lucy, presents must be taken in carry-on luggage so the two-dollar wrapping paper doesn’t get crushed in the hold. But if the presents are monster-sized Lego kits and wardrobes of outfits, this inevitably means they have to be put into the hold, anyway, even if we are only visiting for one night.
With too much time on her hands and a large dose of anxiety at the ready, Jeff’s mum, Millie, takes early bird packing to the extreme. Her biennial visits to Australia, coinciding with opposite seasons, means it’s not uncommon for her to pack her suitcase up to three months before her departure date.
No airport on the planet sells water, apparently, so we can’t possibly leave home without several bottles of the stuff. As you know, Dad would never let us get out of the driveway. Death by dehydration in the forty-minute car journey to the airport cannot be ruled out, so several bottles may be required for the first leg and, indeed, as no airport on the planet has a water fountain, we must drag several empty bottles through the check-in process and through security so we can fill them up with water ‘on the other side’, not drink any while sitting at the gate and then shove those bottles bulkily into the seatbacks in front of us (never to be touched) because no airplane in the world ever serves or offers water to passengers.
And don’t get me started on Mum’s shackles.
I reckon ninety-eight per cent of Jude’s pre-flight anxiety is about missing the flight, and one hundred per cent of the blame for that rests squarely on her own (slumped with stress) shoulders. She has caught maybe hundreds of flights in her life, which means she must also have been through security hundreds of times. And yet every single time, every single flight, she sets the metal detector lights and alarms off like poor Meryl Streep in Silkwood.
Let me set the scene for you. There are literally thousands of people lining up behind us at security. Flights have been cancelled, the air-con is on the blink; patience is at an all-time low. But, bless them, security is doing their best to herd everyone through as quickly as possible and all the stressed-out passengers are co-operating beautifully. And then up comes a seventy-five-year-old woman who – I should remind you – has been through security hundreds of times before.
Like everyone else, I’ve put my phone in the tray, my wallet is out, my belt’s undone, even my shoes are off. But not good old Jude. Up she trots and, of course, she sets off the alarms. And why? Because it is quite impossible for her to travel having left a single piece of jewellery at home. A trip to Brisbane to see the kids just isn’t doable without a Prouds store’s worth of gold hoops.
While some people behind us are a little bit miffed that this woman has forgotten to remove her lifetime’s collection of gold before reaching security, the guards, very calmly and politely, ask Mum to remove it all. So off comes her gold watch, sixteen gold rings, two gold necklaces, a thin gold bracelet . . . but then it’s time to remove the shackles.
Mum’s signature adornment is about two centimetres wide, five millimetres thick and decorated with four thousand gold elephants. It is both difficult and painful to remove, so she insists on travelling with it on, perhaps in the hope that this is the one time she will not be required to dislodge it.
‘Sorry, I can’t take this off. It hurts too much,’ she might say.
To which they might answer, ‘No problem, Madam. Through you go!’
When they instead insist she remove it, Mum is so shocked that she gets indignant and flabbergasted. Her limbs begin to tremble and this causes great suspicion among security staff, who then place her under even greater scrutiny, amping up her hypertension to sky-high levels. While this subtle beauty on her wrist is difficult to remove in the comfort of her own home, you can only imagine her huffing and puffing in front of six frowning uniformed security staff, a sterile conveyor belt and with a queue of impatient travellers behind her growing increasingly more irritable. People switch to other lines and push in front of her, the supervising security guard becomes less tolerant and begins rolling her eyes, and Dad and I just want to crawl under the nearest rock.
Finally, with a great grunt of effort, Mum manages to remove the bracelet, along with several layers of skin. She places it on the tray with her other gold trinkets – all essential to quality travel. She passes through the metal detector, and once again the machine beeps loudly. The entire airport erupts in protest.
At this second set-off, Mum is asked to remove her shoes – the same ones she wears (and that set the alarms off) on every single flight. And these shoes aren’t simple slip-ons. These are complicated strap-up button-down sandals that, for some inexplicable reason, contain a strip of metal within their rubber soles. They are extremely difficult to remove, particularly when you’re trying to do it standing up while your limbs are trembling and you have a fed-up audience watching you and, being of a certain age, your balance ain’t what it used to be.
But eventually Mum gets her shoes off and we’re all set to go.
