So Covid
was fun. I honestly thought I was ‘the special one’. Having survived the past
two years without so much as a sniffle, I assumed I had acquired some superpowered
immune resistant genes rendering me infallible.
The reason
I had escaped thus far was because I hadn’t left my house. Lockdown was a dream
come true. I had seen a Tik Tok video explaining that ice cream warded off
Covid germs, so I ensured I had three tubs of Ben and Jerrys surrounding me at
all times, together with one on my lap. As it’s hot here in Israel, I did
encounter a melting problem, but this just meant I had to increase my speed eating
skills. With time, I was able to slurp three flavours simultaneously without
any dripping on the beige sofa. This was not easy, but practice made perfect.
But then - I
had to leave my house. My nephew was having his barmitzvah. This was selfish
behaviour as he lives in England. Not only did I have to get up off the sofa, I
had to go to an airport to get on a plane. I had tried insisting the simcha
take place here in Israel, but he declined. Something to do with his Mum and
Dad had said no, apparently it was their decision as they were paying for it. Also,
he had some grandparents or something in the UK and they wanted to attend. Like
I said, people are selfish.
Tidy Husband
and Middle Son were climbing a mountain somewhere - apparently this is their
job now. So, I was left with only two offspring in tow. Allegedly, Covid is ‘over’,
and gone are the days of empty airports and empty planes. Travelling has become
trickier. There are people that like leaving their house to experience other
cultures, sights and smells and relish the opportunity to fight crowds of
people and sit squashed in a confined space for hours.
I am not
one of those people. I relish the culture, sights and smells of my own house.
Eldest
daughter believes herself to be an experienced voyager, (I think she went to Spain
once), and went marching off in the wrong direction bypassing security completely
and then becoming outraged when she was restrained by airport staff. Thankfully,
she was allowed to remain in the airport despite her insistence that she was a ‘very
important vlogger who could ruin a career’.
Youngest
son is the least experienced in airport know-how but obviously still knows more
than his stupid middle-aged Mother who knows ‘nothing’ as she hasn’t played as
many video games as he has. He knew a better method of getting through security
that he had seen in a virtual reality world and disappeared in another
direction. So, it took a while until we were all gathered in the same place and
being asked by security if we had any knives of bombs in our luggage or if some
stranger had given us a hand grenade which we may have mistaken for a chocolate
easter egg, (easily done, I do tend to mistake most things for chocolate).
Due to the panicked
Facebook posts on the ‘Brits Living in Israel’ group and high alerts of long
queues and full-on doom and disaster, I had decided to arrive at the airport 62
hours early for the flight. As it only took 17 and a quarter hours to get
through to departures, (apparently, we were lucky as it was a quiet day), we
were left with a mere 16 hours, (or something, maths is not my strong point), to
wait in the terminal with 4,000 other Israelis.
Now, Israelis
have their good points. They’re excellent at making falafel and have some sort
of inspirational global reputation as hi tech entrepreneurs who have single
handedly changed the world as we know it. But they’re quite loud and up for a
fight, which is not pleasant to experience in a restricted space.
Once
through the eternity of airport administration we arrived at the terminal to
await boarding. My objective was to find a seated spot before the 70 billion other
Israelis who had also arrived early.
I don’t like
to stand as I find it hinders my eating capabilities. Seats were in short
supply. The battle began.
Youngest
son is a large lad, so I forcefully propelled him into position across three
chairs. Eldest daughter is a slip of a thing, so spreading her out wouldn’t
help. I instructed her to shout ‘GET BACK NOW’ at anyone coming too close to
our area. As I am on the hefty side, I had no problem spreading myself across a
couple of chairs. I am a champion lounger having had plenty of practice in remaining
in one position on the sofa during lockdown. I couldn’t wait to tell Tidy
Husband that he was actually wrong in saying that staying in one position on a
sofa all day was ‘an absolute disgrace’ and it was, in fact, a very handy life
skill.
There was a
minor security incident after eldest daughter checked the departures board to
discover our flight was delayed. She interpreted the slight delay to mean that
the world was ending, and Armageddon was upon us. This led to a small (ish) scuffle
with security again as she attempted to convey her disappointment to a flight
attendant that she ‘didn’t do delays’ whilst threatening to ‘plaster her face
all over Snapchat’.
Once things
had calmed down, we needed to defend our position. This would have been fine if
one of us didn’t have a weak bladder. At this point I deeply regretted my decision
not to potty train my kids when they were younger as it was ‘too much effort
getting off the sofa’. Eldest daughter certainly would have benefitted from
knowing how to hold in a wee. So, her seat became vacant. I quickly filled it
up with the bags of McDonalds goodies I had purchased in case EasyJet ran out
of bagels on the plane, whilst I remained on high alert.
The peace
didn’t last long before I was accosted by a woman gesticulating in my face and speaking
in a foreign tongue. A barrage of unfamiliar words (I found out later it was
Hebrew) were coming out her mouth whilst her hands were all over my bags of McDonalds.
It appears she was telling me I had a bloody cheek filling up a seat with food
products whilst her little Moshe had nowhere to sit.
She plonked
herself down in MY seat, squashing my food products under her big bum whilst
motioning for three other members of her family to come and squash some food products
too.
This was
too much. No one squashes my food products.
Declaring
loudly ‘You. Are. Having. A. Laugh’ I stood up and in my best Hebrew shouted ‘LO,
LO MAMASH LO’, whilst wrestling McDonalds bags from under her bum and pushing
her off the seat.
She got the
message. But I think in all the confusion she may have given me COVID.