Security files

Travelling, how hard can it be?  It's just a matter of booking tickets, grabbing your passports and heading to the airport. In this day and age where the world can fit into the palm of your hand, travelling must be as easy as pie.

Now might be the opportune time to think of a pie, a great big pie filled with wiggling, worrying, niggling worms. And you don't even know what's in the pie till you've taken your first bite. And then it's too late as the worms are making their malignant way into your gullet.

But let's start at the beginning ...

I'd checked that we had our passports at least 17 times. The boys and I had wrestled with the suitcases and closed them with not a bubble of air left to exhale. The zips had been stretched and strained, the cases locked and tagged. We'd been picked up by our lovely "Trusties" (our two lovely friends), dropped off and waved goodbye to.

Auckland airport is a treasure. I was nearly chuffed when I was checked for explosives. I smiled widely and knowingly, only just noticing that I seemed to be the only one pulled out of the queue for this little travel-taster. Lost Mr Nearly-13 in Duty Free when engrossed in nostril pursuits. Mr 16 found him (this became a bit of a travel pattern but ... laters).

Oh well ... on board ... slept and sampled the alcoholic beverages on the tinny trolley. Well it's not as if I was going to have to drive was it?

Tahiti ... frisked ... oops left the laptop on the plane ... mild panic as boys clambered behind me as we tried to find the right uniform to talk to ... laptop retrieved ... another queue ... another wrestle with officialdom ... back on plane ... back in the air ... another trolley ... another sip ... zzzzz ... LA!

Well the excitement of landing is usually knocked on the head as soon as you join the immigration queue. LA offered a chaotic queue with the added help of folk directing the grumpy, human traffic ... that little bit of authority may have gone to head of some folk as we where herded and yelled out. Even using "ma'am" this and "sir" that, didn't remove the mini-dictator tone from the yeller.

After shuffling about and looking about apologetically ... we arrived at the customs desk. And what a nice, officious young man was there to meet us.

His smile was worn and tight. He reminded me of a young Erik Estrada ... some of you might not remember CHiPs but if you saw this bloke, you'd think CHiPs and not the blond one, the black-haired one, Ponch.

Anyway, it went like this. "Blah ... blah ... blah ... well ma'am?"

"Pardon?" me.

"Where are you staying?"

"At my girlfriend's," I said.

"Do you have an address or telephone number?"

"She lives in New York," me again.

"Do you have an address or telephone number?"

I thought. "No, not exactly."

"Blah ... blah ... blah ... you do realise that's the sort of thing a bad person would say."

"I expect a bad person would be more organised."

Pulled aside, we had to wait for an airline official to come along and help the wayward travellers out of a spot of forgetful bother. Mr 16 had pulled out a plausible address but I was thrown into mild panic.

We were in the US of A ... I'd forgotten to write down the address where we were staying ... we were going to get sent home before we'd even started our great adventure. Serious crappola!

Anyway, the airline official somehow untangled this web of forgettion and we found our way back in front of Ponch. Ponch rolled his eyes, stamped our passports and wished us well.

And that was that. We were in America. A-M-E-R-I-C-A!

But oddly, LA provided another little hiccough in our journey.

After finding our way to the Delta terminal. All very nice, a bit stark and of course I nearly got sucked in by a bag toting "traveller" ("Ma'am I just need $10 to make up my fare" ... well I nearly gave him one of the boys to sell so he could further his travels until a very tall, travel-wise, African-American man, stepped in and suggested I keep my son, as the "traveller" scarpered from the terminal no doubt clutching ill-gotten gains from other daft travellers).

Oops ... then it was time to go through to catch our flight to New York.  Goodness, there are more uniforms than travellers and there was even a Dr Whovian traveller-scanner. While I was oggling this machine I'd read about somewhere or other as I traversed the metal detector, the little bells went off.

"Come this way please ma'am,"

I'd set off the blooming alarm as I tootled through. I would've happily gone on the conveyer belt with my boots, dignity is over-rated.

More "Blah ... blah ... would you like a private room?"

"No." My thinking being, let's just get this over with, not wanting to be away from the boys.

Standing aside, on a lovely big rubber mat, the uniformed woman officer explained what she was about to do, in some detail. My contenance obviously looked as if I'd lost interest, I probably had.

"Are you listening ma'am?"

Nodding enthusiastically, "Yes, of course."

She proceeded the rather intimate search. It wasn't the fly-by pat-down we'd received in Tahiti. It was right up and down each leg. Then it was around each boob. They hadn't had so much attention since being wrestled by midwives when trying to show me how to breastfeed the boys (and can't remember it being so much fun then either).

So as I stood spreadeagled in a rather public area of LA International Airport, I felt the real burden of having bigger boobs and the curse of the underwire bra. The boys stood just to the side, trying to pretend they weren't with me.

And then that was it for travel glitches. Of course the lovely lady on the Delta Sky Lounge desk sorted out the little problem of the boys and I being booked on different flights to New York, who'd have thought it, eh? 

Travelling, what fun!

I think when they mean as easy as pie, they really mean "pi" ... and I've never really understood circles.

Pt Chev Team's great big adventure!

I'm not sure the exact day, the day that it was decided that instead of talking about taking the big trip with the boys; actually booking it. It's all of course thanks to a combination of happy couplings and stark realities. Time is not always a given, nor is health. The Pt Chev Team was in fine fettle, but others' bad news made me think.

So thanks to a golden bank and a sterling will (only becuase I thought it needed a bit of plating), tickets were booked and dreams dusted and polished.

In 2004, the year we became three, I wrote down in a long-forgotten notebook, some things that we would do within 10 years. One was to visit a very good friend, who lives in New York. The other things were things that needed to be done, and were written with a number of other lists that you think you should write when your world has turned purple and is gasping for air. Lists help to make a bit of sense when sense has donned its cloak of  invisibility and danced a merry dance off into the night.

So we were going, not just talking about it. The Pt Chev Team were going to climb into metal tubes (well a few really, as we do live on the bottom's bottom of a rotund globe) navigate the globe.  Except I wasn't navigating, I'm not sure if pilots need to flip their maps to see if they're going in the right direction, I sort of hope not.

As a grown-up, it was up to me to plan, and organise, and book and dive into the cyber sea to let it throw up all sorts of earthly delights.

I can see why folk get wedding planners.

Luckily, there was a grown-up in the travelling mix of three, and low and behold it wasn't me.