The First
BY MELANY BENDIX
LAW OF TRAVEL
Do it again, mom!
The TSA guy looked up without moving
his head, in that eyebrow-arching
way only security-trained people
seem able to do. “Rough day?” he
asked rhetorically.
Sweat was pouring down my beetroot
face. My hands were stinging from
where they’d hauled hand luggage across
three massive terminals at Los Angeles
International Airport at a speed that would
make Caster Semenya proud. My shoulders,
carrying the full weight of a 16-kilo
three-year-old (still slouching casually in the
carrier on my back), ached in a way that I
knew would be the source of headaches for
weeks to come. And I had a bad case of the
crazy eye.
It had started six hours earlier, in Phoenix,
where a perfectly weighed suitcase was now
inexplicably overweight. In a bustling aiport
queue, I had to unpack a kid’s suitcase and
ignore her wails as I tossed a few beloved
books. Not a good start to a marathon
journey from Phoenix to Los Angeles, to
Doha and, finally, home to Cape Town.
Not one to be deterred by the drudgeries
of travel, my daughter was on fine form
throughout our first flight. She suggested to
the man in the adjoining seat that he should
brush his “yellow teeth” lest they fall out,
asked – and not in her inside voice – why
the cabin steward had a “circle with no hair
on his head” and bleated out a profanity
(mea culpa) when she spilt her juice. That
was all in the first hour of flying. We had
another 35-plus to go, and things were
about to get worse.
We had spent four hours killing time in
LAX. This mostly consisted of being fleeced
for over-priced airport trinkets because,
like a circling buzzard sensing weakness in
its prey, so too does the human child sense
parental weakness in transport hubs. It was
while fending off a well-timed swoop for
the Frozen box set that I realised something
was very wrong: 30 minutes to boarding
and our flight was still not on the board.
With the child still belting out Let It Go in a
last-ditch attempt to coerce me to do just
that with more highly priced post-NeneGate
dollars, I frantically searched for anyone
vaguely official looking. I found her, chewing
gum in an airport buggy. “You’re in the
wrong terminal, honey,” she drawled. “This
is four. You need to be in two, and you need
to clear security again to get in. You’re
never gonna make it.”
Which is how I came to be in front of the
TSA officer all crazy-eyed and sweating like
a contestant in The Biggest Loser. “Rough
day for you,” he smiled, “but she looks like
she’s having a good time.” I turned to see
my kid grinning: “Do it again, mom. Faster!”
And so, as the plane lifted off I left our
bad start on the tarmac. In Doha we took
advantage of Qatar Airways’ offer of
complimentary transfers and a hotel stay so
that we could enjoy a middle-of-the-night
T A LES
FR OM
T HE
RO A D
jaunt in a new city. We swam in an Arabian
Nights-style rooftop swimming pool
overlooking the twinkling city, ate a feast
of curry and naan with freshly squeezed
lemon and mint juice in a hole-in-the-wall
restaurant for the princely sum of R40,
and walked the seaside Corniche to look
at all the “magic fairy boats” with their
blinking neon lights. We continued the
My daughter was on fine form...
She suggested to the man in the
adjoining seat that he should
brush his “yellow teeth” lest they
fall out and asked why the cabin
steward had a “circle with no hair
on his head”
midnight jaunt at Doha’s incredible Hamad
International Airport (my new world
favourite), where she frolicked in the
playground with kids from around the globe
while I sipped a frappe in a cushy armchair.
Because, in her finding fun in the worst of
travel situations, my intrepid little partner
had reminded me of the first law of travel:
it’s all about your attitude.
MAKE MEMORIES FOR LIFE // 61