No, there were no Snakes on this plane. Nor were there any hilarious quips from Samuel L Jackson. There were two toddlers, who happen to be mine. Once the novelty of being on the aeroplane had worn off the children decided that they wanted to jump on the seats. After attempting to remain calm and keep up my "In Public" Mummy persona I smiled through gritted teeth and told them to sit down. The old Romanian woman behind us kept passing them slices of buttered bread through the seats to which I mumbled "Thank you" and "sorry". The bread kept coming. It's like she had a bottomless bag of bread or something, it was kind of fascinating.
I then decided that buying two collectable Wizz Air models would keep them occupied despite the Air hostess saying "you have to assemble them". So I assembled those mother fuckers. The tail snapped off one of them. I decided this was fine. Until both children realised that one had a snapped tail and the other did not. Cue fighting over more complete airplane model. I buy another one, because all I want is five seconds of peace while I lay my head on the plastic table in front of me and sip my overpriced aeroplane Pepsi. This kept them occupied for all of five minutes, I re-read the same page in my book a total of eight times. The eldest child wets himself and I take him to the bathroom to clean up. Whilst I am gone the younger child sits on the floor and eats crisps, much to the shock and horror of other passengers(Disclaimer, they were our crisps, not random dirty floor crisps). I then tell the younger child to look out of the window. This occupies him for all of two seconds whilst the older child rips up the in-flight brochure. They then fight over an advert that has Santa on it. I then confiscate the Santa advert and make them sit with their seat belts on. This seems to work and I sink onto the table and close my eyes. "Mummy!" "Mummy!" "Mummy!" I open my eyes. Younger child is brandishing a packet of strange "pizza cube" Russian crisps I bought at a mini-mart. I open them and he eats, he seems to like them. The older child spits them out into my hand. Both children have mainly eaten crisps today. I am not ashamed. Pizza cubes galore. It's raining fucking pizza cubes. Even the Pilot will wake up with pizza cubes in his ears tomorrow. I confiscate the pizza cubes and give them the Santa advert(ripped in half so they both have a piece). Romanian bread lady passes some more bread through the seats. I try to pass her some cake back through and she refuses. Fair enough. I tried.
Finally we land. And I am so happy to see the greyness of London. It's glorious. I go down the steps and ask the luggage guys if I can have my pushchair (every other flight I've taken I've been given the pushchair straight off the plane). They then explain to me that I can't have it because it has to be taken with the rest of the luggage and I have to go through passport control first. I have a two year old, a four year old and hand luggage. I envision the task ahead and take a deep breath. They are already hanging off my hands like monkeys from a branch. As I go to turn around some mousy little woman comes at me screeching. "You have to go into the queue! You can't have the pushchair! You have to get it from baggage reclaim! You can't have it!" I see red. Yes this woman is doing her job, but I had already been informed about the pushchair situation and was in the middle of mentally preparing for the dreaded journey to passport control with two bored, hyperactive kids when she emerged from her hiding place shrieking at me like a fishwife. "How can I take the two year-" "You can't have it! You have to go to passport control!" Ok so this bitch is getting on my nerves. Instead of offering to help someone obviously struggling she refuses to listen and continues her nonsense. I said the only thing that came to mind, "Fucks sake."
"Watch your language when you have children!"
"Excuse me?!"
"I said watch your language you have children!"
YES YOU FUCKING MINION I AM AWARE I HAVE CHILDREN. I DON'T THINK YOU UNDERSTAND I AM TRYING TO ASK FOR HELP IN A RIDICULOUS SITUATION WITH TWO KIDS, HAND LUGGAGE, A BAG OF SQUASHED FOOD AND TWO PILLOWS SHAPED LIKE GOD DAMN CARS!!!!
"Don't dare speak to me like that and get away from me right now!"
Yes I flicked my hand at her like she was a servant and I was Marie Antionette, yes a whole crowd of people were looking at me like I had lost the plot. And I think in that moment I somewhat had. But it was nothing compared with what was to come.
The journey to passport control involved screaming, rolling along the floor, flinging of hats, dropping of bags, running, grabbing, undone shoelaces and the kindness of a wonderful woman who remembered me from the outbound flight(thank god for the charity of strangers). Having reached Passport control at the speed of a one legged donkey on the way to Jerusalem, I feel this is the end of the perilous journey. Alas, it was not so. It was like a scene from the monkey enclosure at the zoo.
They began racing up and down the room, pulling down the barriers used to organise the queue, not listening to a word I said. I looked around. Everyone else's children were standing quietly. I looked like the terrible mother who can't control her kids. When I managed to catch one child the other would run out of sight. I was shouting, pleading and offering sweets, threatening to call Santa and a whole legion of Boogeymen. All to no avail. It got to the point where I actually cried in public. In front of a queue of 100 people. #worstmomentever
It got so bad that security took pity on me and eventually opened up a new lane to let me through first. It took two members of airport staff to get hold of my youngest son, who is incredibly fast for his age. Safe to say I was immensely grateful.
Baggage reclaim. The boys decide to jump on the belt. I haul them off again and again, this has become a game. I spy my suitcase and lunge at it whilst pulling a child off the belt. The pram appears, finally. I consider just letting the belt take both children away, and let them revolve around baggage reclaim at Luton forever. I strap the little one in and grab the suitcase. My eldest immediately starts to behave and actually listens when I tell him to hold the pram as we make our way to leave. As we are about to exit: "Mummy no! The toys!"
I follow my son's chubby pointing finger to the belt, where I see the pillow cars, Furby and an orange entering the hatch.