This Time

This Time

I went back to the airport. This time I would do it. This time I would push on through.

The first part was easy, driving to the Drop Off point but once you got there, you had to keep on going. That was the tricky part. That’s where I messed up.

That time, the time I dropped my daughter off, I continued through , swinging around the roundabout but that’s where it got confusing, arrows pointing in all directions, a jumble of signs and always someone up your ass pushing you to speed up, for god’s sake.

That’s when it happened. A dark, chunky , sinister sedan pulled me over. It had AFP on the side. Australian Federal Police. An officer got out, walked up to my side window and tapped on it. I was packing it. What had I done? or more importantly what did he believe I had done. This was the age of terrorism. But did I look like a terrorist?

He questioned me briefly, took my license and walked back to his car. That’s when he got talking to someone. I assumed they were doing a police check on me, on the vehicle. All the time I could see him in the rear view watching me.

Finally he sauntered up to me, handed the licence back, and said I was free to go this time, but to be careful where I drove. What the hell did that mean? Where had I wandered?

That’s when I got the fear of driving to the airport to drop someone off or pick someone up.

But this time I did it. I made it all the way. History did not repeat itself. Woo Hoo !

The Bush Smiled Smugly.

Because I did not have a name for it, I referred to it disrespectfully

as ‘The Beast’, ‘It’. ‘The Monster Devouring the Yard’

‘The Putin of Bushes’.

I fought it, slashed it, pruned it, tried to wrestle it

to the ground. It was defiant as The Terminator.

I phoned gardeners, Jim’s Mowing.

Send us photos they said. I did.

I could almost see them recoil in horror.

None phoned back, sent a text message.

The bush smiled smugly.

Then I phoned the Strata Title Management in desperation

and they sent me their contractor.

‘Looks like Japanese Honeysuckle, ‘ he said. ‘I can do this’.

He quoted a cash figure I was quite prepared for and an hour later

it had a neat little trim.

It’s own mother would be proud of it, he smiled.

I’ll be back in twelve weeks. You’ll probably need me.