Here I am at Brisbane Airport and my week’s respite from the drudgery of everyday life is almost at an end. Nana and Grandad Poinker dropped me at the train station at 1.00pm ensuring that I would arrive at the airport at least two hours early.
If Scotto had been with me we would have had to tear through the terminal at breakneck speed to make it in time before check-in closed, only just succeeding by the skin of our porcelain veneers. The boy likes to cut it fine. Pinky on the other hand likes to arrive hours before departure just to play it safe like an old Grandma.
I stood at the entrance of the train station uselessly waving my return ticket over the turnstile like a defective magic wand.
“Excuse me,” I asked a woman who walked with a sense of purpose and appeared to know what she was doing, “Can you tell me where I’m supposed to poke this ticket into?”
“They collect the tickets when you get there,” she explained benevolently, “why don’t you just walk through that gate?”
I inclined my head slightly and immediately noticed the three-metre-wide open gate three paces to the left of me.
Grinning foolishly I managed to wrangle my luggage through the gate and promptly accosted my next unsuspecting victim with another inane and daft enquiry.
“Excuse me sir, but do you know which platform I need to go to for the airport train?”
The elderly man squinted at me with interest.
“There’s only one platform love, you’d better go down that lift with your luggage though.”
As I stepped into the lift and the doors closed behind me I realised the elderly gentleman had lied to me... big time.
The lift had two doors on either side. One door opened on to Platform One and the other on to, you guessed it, Platform Two.
“Sh#t!!!!” I silently screamed. “Which frickin door do I get out of???”
Fortunately when both doors of the lift opened simultaneously I saw that there was actually only one platform with rail lines either side and by walking a mere ten feet you could go from platform to platform twenty times within a minute if the fancy took you.
I only had to wait about twenty minutes for the train to arrive and I was lucky to nab the perfect bench just inside the door, spreading myself out comfortably over two seats.
I pondered briefly why I seemed to be attracting apprehensive looks from some of the other passengers as they boarded the train during the journey, especially the really old ones; until after an hour and a bit into the ride I noticed a sign fifteen centimetres from my nose.
PRIORITY SEATING AREA
Please vacate these seats for people with Disabilities, Seniors, Pregnant Women and Adults carrying children.
Oh crap! I thought. Now I’m going to have to noticeably hobble off the train so everyone will think there’s something wrong with me.
Check-in went smoothly and I wasn’t even detained by those security guys who run that machine up and down your body searching for traces of explosives.
I stood at the entrance of the train station uselessly waving my return ticket over the turnstile like a defective magic wand.
“Excuse me,” I asked a woman who walked with a sense of purpose and appeared to know what she was doing, “Can you tell me where I’m supposed to poke this ticket into?”
“They collect the tickets when you get there,” she explained benevolently, “why don’t you just walk through that gate?”
I inclined my head slightly and immediately noticed the three-metre-wide open gate three paces to the left of me.
Grinning foolishly I managed to wrangle my luggage through the gate and promptly accosted my next unsuspecting victim with another inane and daft enquiry.
“Excuse me sir, but do you know which platform I need to go to for the airport train?”
The elderly man squinted at me with interest.
“There’s only one platform love, you’d better go down that lift with your luggage though.”
As I stepped into the lift and the doors closed behind me I realised the elderly gentleman had lied to me... big time.
The lift had two doors on either side. One door opened on to Platform One and the other on to, you guessed it, Platform Two.
“Sh#t!!!!” I silently screamed. “Which frickin door do I get out of???”
Fortunately when both doors of the lift opened simultaneously I saw that there was actually only one platform with rail lines either side and by walking a mere ten feet you could go from platform to platform twenty times within a minute if the fancy took you.
I only had to wait about twenty minutes for the train to arrive and I was lucky to nab the perfect bench just inside the door, spreading myself out comfortably over two seats.
I pondered briefly why I seemed to be attracting apprehensive looks from some of the other passengers as they boarded the train during the journey, especially the really old ones; until after an hour and a bit into the ride I noticed a sign fifteen centimetres from my nose.
PRIORITY SEATING AREA
Please vacate these seats for people with Disabilities, Seniors, Pregnant Women and Adults carrying children.
Oh crap! I thought. Now I’m going to have to noticeably hobble off the train so everyone will think there’s something wrong with me.
Check-in went smoothly and I wasn’t even detained by those security guys who run that machine up and down your body searching for traces of explosives.
I’ve learned from the previous thirty-seven times they’ve picked me from the crowd and taken me into custody that you should never make eye contact. If you look at them and smile innocently as you’re walking past you’ll unavoidably be asked,
“Excuse me Madam, this will just take a few minutes.”
One time when Scotto and I were returning home from holidays I was (naturally) stopped (even though he’s the one who looks like he could be an Iraqi extremist. (I’m looking over my shoulder at present because even typing the word terrorist at an airport makes me nervous).
“I always get stopped for these checks!” I cheerily joked to the humourless woman conducting the going-over.
“I must look like a terrorist or something!” jested an innocuous Pinky.
She paused for an extended moment and stared coldly at me.
“Haha,” I managed to blather on nervously, “Must be my moustache that makes me look like an Iraqi radical!”
“Excuse me Madam, this will just take a few minutes.”
One time when Scotto and I were returning home from holidays I was (naturally) stopped (even though he’s the one who looks like he could be an Iraqi extremist. (I’m looking over my shoulder at present because even typing the word terrorist at an airport makes me nervous).
“I always get stopped for these checks!” I cheerily joked to the humourless woman conducting the going-over.
“I must look like a terrorist or something!” jested an innocuous Pinky.
She paused for an extended moment and stared coldly at me.
“Haha,” I managed to blather on nervously, “Must be my moustache that makes me look like an Iraqi radical!”
She continued, at uncomfortable length, to peer into my eyes with suspicion.
Needless to say I shut up quick smart after a cautioning kick in the shin from Scotto and we were ultimately allowed on to the plane.
As I said; keep your eyes down and your mouth shut.
