Beware of promises to children
Wilsons Week...
You don’t expect small children to have memories like steel traps. But because my children do possess this faculty I shall be very careful about making promises to them. Holiday activities were in mind when I casually asked the boys what they would like to do this year. “Go to Australia,” they chorused. “Sure, kids. Now seriously. What would you like to do?” ‘Go to Australia,” they repeated, adding in a tinge of wounded innocence that only children can generate, “You promised.” “I did? When?” “After your last trip there, you promised us that next time you’d take us.” “Ah. That was business that trip. I was working.” “You came home with model aeroplanes in your bag. That wasn’t working.” “Gee, kids. I don’t know.” This was an attempt at wounded innocence that they completely ignored. My wife voted with them. “Australia’s very big,” I bleated. "Sydney would be nice,” said three voices as one.
Small boys can be remarkably sophisticated travellers, as I learnt several days later at Christchurch Airport. We had parked the car and I was struggling toward the departures terminal weighted down with suitcases as a seven-year-old and five-year-old mini whirlwind swirled around me.
Look, boys. Over there. See the great big aeroplane, the one with the kangaroo on its tail? Gosh, it’s big. I wonder what it is? All of this was delivered in a gee-we’re-going-on-holiday father’s voice.
They examined the big jet. “Mmmm. It’s a Qantas 747 jumbo ... wonder if we’ll be on the upper deck?” they mused. So much for patronising conversation. On board they behaved like seasoned air travellers, languidly testing the seat tilting mechanism, tuning in to the in-flight audio entertainment, casually examining the drinks trolley to select a lemonade with ice please. Dad was the excited one. Gee, kids. Off to Sydney, eh? Golly jeepers, eh? The cabin attendants handed out toys, colouring books, lollies and other goodies to the boys. Dad was allowed to colour in one picture. Halfway across the Tasman an invitation was extended to visit the flight deck and meet the captain. “Great! I’d love to.” “Actually, I meant the boys, sir,” the cabin attendant apologised. Zoom! Two little shapes vanished toward the sharp end of the plane while I stayed behind, grumbling into my bourbon and ginger ale. I am the aeroplane nut in the family and I do not get to visit the cockpit. It’s not fair! Then I noticed my
wife gripping the edges of her seat. “They won’t let the kids ... actually touch the controls ... will they?” she said. “Of course not, dear.” She ordered a hefty gin and tonic. The boys returned, faced beaming. I drew one lad aside. “Tell me, son. What’s the cockpit of a 747 look like?” He drew a picture for me. I hoped it was more sophisticated than his rendering. Still, it was reassuring to know that Qantas pilots wore big, happy smiles even if they did have bodies like matchsticks. It was late afternoon when we arrived at Sydney and as we neared the customs and immigration barrier I drew the family aside. “Dad’s probably going to be detained here. You’ll see. They’ll look at my passport, push a button and security people will appear. They keep confusing me with some dangerous criminal.”
“Will they have guns?” the boys chirped hopefully. This rigmarole had happened to me at Sydney only a month before and if I was sure of one thing, I knew it would happen again. It did. "Please wait here, sir,” said the security person, who vanished with my passport. The boys looked unhappy. “She didn’t have a gun,” one of them moaned. A few minutes later the mix-up was sorted out and the Australian authorities were satisfied I was not the David Wilson, the real bad bugger, that they had been warned to look out for.
Mind you, the security hiccup was a mere bagatelle compared with the saga of travelling from
the airport to the hotel. It was dark, it had been a long day and Sydney is big, so it was going to be a long drive.
And of all the taxi drivers in Sydney, I hired a Vietnamese guy who hardly spoke English and knew his way around the streets about as well as I did.
Thirty minutes later, hopelessly lost, we were parked in a darkened side street as the driver frantically radioed base for directions and I examined his handbook, “Sydney for Taxi Drivers who get Lost.” “So this is Sydney,” the oldest boy mused, looking out at the darkened side street. “There is more to it,” I promised, “if we ever find our way.” Attempts at sarcasm were lost on the driver who fixed me with an inquiring eye. “Where you want to go, go again?” “I want to go to Edgecliff, and not again. I like to go there for the first time!” I demanded, a note of anger tinging the response. “Ah. Edgecriff. Edgecriff. Mmmmm.” “You’re lost, aren’t you? Go on, admit it, man.”
The taxi despatcher eventually radioed directions and we roared off into the sunset. “We almost there,” he said, as we roared past the hotel. Not surprisingly he did not earn a tip from that fare.
We were safe in the hotel. And hungry. "I’m terribly sorry, sir,” said the hotel receptionist. “But the restaurant is closed. No, we don’t operate a room service menu. You can try the food bars down the road.”
“They are closed,” I replied. "I know that because we drove past them — twice.”
The view of Sydney Harbour from the hotel was beautiful. Tomorrow, I promised, we shall see the sights. "Where’s the toilet, dad?” two voices chorused. I was going to hear that question many, many times, all over Sydney, in the coming week. — DAVE WILSON.
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