When arriving in hell...
..I do hope that you are treated to a review (on a big telly)of all the reasons you've been sent there. If only for this particular one, which I don't think exactly guarantees a place at Little Horn's dining table but I'm sure adds to my likely fate....

On arriving back in the UK after two weeks in the sun, myself and the girlfriend stepped off the plane into the miles of arrivals corridors at Manchester Airport. Peering out the window, I could see that a much larger plane had parked up next to ours and many people were flowing from it to join us at passport control.

We joined the winding queues at passport control just behind a family of roughly 8 or 9 people, all jostling for position and generally making a racket (as families do) most notably, a small boy who was no older than three.

The father of the family has the bright idea of leaning over the rope barrier and dropping his luggage on the other side, so he could walk up the queue (a good 30ish yards) and collect the luggage as he came down the next isle of queue, repeating the process. Obviously, airport security went potty and started demanding to know who's the unattended bag was, at one end of this queue. By this point, the father was half way down the other end of the queue so the people stood near his luggage quite rightly said it was not their's. Airport security begin to get a bit jumpy and voices are raised as they peer down the lines, looking for the owner of this bag. I got the attention of the father and told him that it was his bag causing all this and after shooting me a look as if he'd just scraped me off the bottom of his sandal, he raised his hand and smiled like a goon at the security guy who returned the bag and asked him NOT to do that again, please. A request he promptly disregarded. Someone has his back, obviously.

So after this incident, I was suitably seething somewhat as the child I mentioned before (small boy, about three years) noticed that he could run, full pelt, underneath the dividing ropes of the queues without having to duck or slow down. The little guy reveled in this as he ran up and down the queues as his mother and elder sisters tried in vain to hurdle / duck under the ropes fast enough to catch him. Enjoying watching his siblings frustration a little too much, he was unaware of the big metal sign he was heading towards. The sign was held up by two posts and he was heading right in between them. The sign's bottom edge, unfortunately, was about an inch lower than the ropes. He hit it so hard that if it was not for his feet flipping up and hitting the sign as he rotated, he would have done a full backflip.

Well......that was me done. I was crying, literally crying with laughter all the way through passport control, into baggage claim and out to the taxi, all of the time being glared at by the father.

Seeing a small child injure themselves shouldn't really be very amusing, but given the circumstances it was the funniest thing of 2008 for me. I don't care if I got to hell for thinking so.
(smithe-ingelby-smithe, Wed 17 Dec 2008, 14:15, 2 replies)

Heh
Made me laugh just reading it...can't wait to see the wide screen dolby sound version :)
( snee held his breath since, Wed 17 Dec 2008, 14:21, closed)

I'm with you there - small children hurting themselves - Brillant

It's that bit on 'you've been framed' I actually watch - coffee on the keyboard now!

click
(twiceydrinker hmmm is it pint time?, Thu 18 Dec 2008, 15:06, closed)