Border Erection

I broke my own rules regarding appropriate wear for plane travel yesterday.  I not so much referring to plane attire here, as who cares when your flight is a one hour job from Hobart to Melbourne.   I'm referring here, to appropriate wear for passing through that charming collection of people known as "airport security".  Yesterday I totally fucked up, and wore boots, a belt, and an extra tight bracelet.  The thing is, when you have a kid or four, passing through security is even more of a major ordeal.  Actually, this is where you get your first proper dose of fellow traveller hatred.  Naturally you will hold up the line.  You will also have to pass through the screening several times because in the confusion to get bottles of breast milk out for show and tell, you will forget to remove jackets, prise dolls from sobbing children, and find it impossible to disassemble your stroller.  There are things you can do to make it easier for yourself.

Never forget to remove your piece from your back pocket - it makes your bum look big

1. Always pack your own liquids in a zip lock bag the night before, and check that none of them are over 100ml.  They will be confiscated.  Most regular sized tubes of toothpaste are 125ml.  If you are now claiming that you don't have any zip lock bags, get into your car now, drive to the supermarket and get some.  They are useful in everyday life, and absolutely essential for travel.  Have this liquids bag somewhere accessible - like an outside pocket.  Digging around in your bag takes time.  Same goes for bottles of breast milk and sterilised water.  (Don't forget that breast milk will last up to 10 hours outside the fridge, but formula only 1 hour, so make it up on the plane with exact amounts measured into zip lock bags and written on with a permanent marker in case you forget number of scoops).

* Remember here I am referring to overseas travel.  Domestically (in Australia NOT the US) take as many liquids of any volume that you like.  They are your heaviest items and it's all about making your checked in luggage under 23kg.

2.  Don't wear a belt.  They are really annoying to remove and even more annoying to get back on.  A lot of shit can go down while you're trying to re-loop that sucker.

It's always the grannies that fuck it up for the rest of us

3.  Try to avoid boots.  Unfortunate I know, as a heavy pair of boots will take up valuable space and weight in your suitcase so wearing them seems like a great plan.  However, taking them off to put through screening, and walking around in your socks waiting for them is irritating and often gross.  I once trod in something moist and squelchy in the waiting zone, and putting your shoe back on over something unidentified, yet unmistakably rank, is fucked up.  Furthermore, often your feet will swell a bit on long flight, and it hurts to squash them back on while preparing to disembark.  By that stage you will not need anything that will make you feel worse than you already do.  Slip on flats are the best.  Take socks for when your feet get cold.  Nobody cares about style in the air.  Just ask Qantas air hostesses.

As tempting as it sounds, packing babies is actually illegal

4.  Don't wear much jewelry.  Even if it doesn't set the machine off itself, something else might and then you'll have to take it all off anyway.  If you ever wear a small bracelet that takes skin off your thumb knuckle when you try and get it off,  leave it at home.  Or pack it with your other jewelry (in your hand luggage of course).

I wonder is they also have the body cavity search set?

5. Make sure your passports are also extremely accessible as you will have to show them possibly a couple of times after checking in.  Store the correct boarding pass inside each person's passport on the photo page.  You should have filled out your departure cards while your partner was checking in all the luggage.  If you are on your own, still make sure you do it well before clearing immigration.  And while we are on the topic, ALWAYS fill out each family member's entry card for the country you are travelling to, while you are in the air, and long before you touch down.  Even newborn babies need their own card, but one customs declaration per family should suffice. Keep them altogether, also stored on the photo page of each person's passport.  It makes clearing immigration upon arrival so much smoother.  Don't count on filling them out in the line - if you are with children, you will typically be ushered to the front of every queue (there's got to be some benefits).

I never recommend a stroller in the snow

6. Strollers are essential to keep your mini horrors contained at the airport.  You should have a particular type for air travel.  By this I mean, the type that collapses and fits through an airport security screening machine.  Even twin ones do this - such as the Baby Love Twin Stroller and the Maclaren Twin Techno.  They will try and tell you you need to check it in at the luggage desk sometimes.  Tell them they have shit for brains and you know for a fact that it fits through the screener.  Use different language though, otherwise your suitcase might end up being kicked around out the back and implanted with heroin.  These type of strollers usually have the type of handles that you can use to hang a million types of carry-on bags, and alcohol shopping you might do in duty free.  Plus you can usually drive it right to the plane door and sometimes even pick it up at the same spot once you get to your destination.  It's always a long shot though.  So don't expect it to be waiting for you.  There's nothing more depressing to cart everything 3 km to baggage collection, because they didn't pull it out and have it erected and waiting as soon as you stepped off (those 2 litre bottles of Bombay Sapphire weigh a ton).

Without a stroller there's always improvisation

In almost every country of the world, including some US airports and Israel (which are two of the most security conscious places on the planet), if your babies are asleep, you will be allowed to wheel your stroller through security.  Then it will be checked by a chubby person wearing latex gloves and a smile.  But not in Australia.  I seriously think Australian airport security employees are some of the meanest bunch of arseholes in the world.  There is also a chance that they are all former employees of the prison system.  They literally treat you like you are committing a crime, by daring to take off to Fiji for ten days on your honeymoon.

Let me give you an example of meanness I once experienced at the hands of Sydney airport's security team.  To say it had been a long trip back from Spain would be an understatement.  It was 40 hours of non-stop driving, airport waiting, flights, three plane changes and tarmac stalling.  All this with six month old twins, who decided not to sleep for more than 45 mins at a time the entire return journey, added a further venture into dementia.  I was destroyed.  We finally touched down in the homeland, retrieved the Twin Techno, and the girls fell into a deep slumber all comfy and cosy.

How could anybody wake this up??!

Then..... we had to go through domestic security to take our final flight from Sydney to Hobart.  I begged and pleaded not to have to get the girls out and fold down the stroller.  In fact, I actually disgraced myself and cried.  A lot.  Plus I simply point blank refused to get the girls out of the stroller.  One of the men went over to get the boss, and I was signalled out as a troublemaker.  Then, the biggest, scariest women I'd ever seen came straight for me.  I think it was a woman. Could have been a man with earrings.  And a name tag that said "Jan".
"What the 'ell is goin' on ova 'ere?" bellowed Jan the Man.  I stated my case through sobs, 40 hours travel, no sleep for myself, precious little for the sanity-destroyers, begging that they give the stroller a latex pat down.
"Look 'ere you....I'm a Nan"  Wow! She really was a woman (unless I mistook "man" for "nan").  However, this declaration did not indicate she was about to be sympathetic to my case.  In fact, and of course, the opposite.
"You get them babies out NOW!!! You kinda people are....are..... a threat to our borders!!!".

She had a point, I was at that stage looking around for a weapon to stab into her eye.  Sleep deprivation really can instigate a murder.  I've envisaged a LOT of killing these last three years.  I didn't realise it was about Border Protection though, I thought it was about being a power tripping fuck-face.  I didn't say this of course - it was not the time for a body cavity search.  Instead I just sobbed, and said "You're mean, mean hearted" and took out both girls.  They both woke up and started crying (as predicted).  Everyone behind me in the line, who had been watching the whole shameful scene intently, went "Awwwwwww", and "That's awful", and maybe even a few "How could you's?"  I feel like, even though I had created the world's largest single queue of people - according the 2009 Guinness Book of Records - they actually felt sorry for me.  I let the girl's wails crescendo to screaming.  I'm sure I saw Jan the Nan flinch.  I held eye contact -"Where's your grandmotherly compassion now you asexual fatty?"

Jan in her younger days

And thus ends another (long) tale about how much I hate airports, and all people involved with them.  I swear if the real Border Protection ever reads this blog, I will be forever more be singled out as a suspicious person of interest every time I try to leave our lands.  All I can say is" bring it Jan".....