Come fly with me. (please someone I’m physically incapable of doing anything alone)

I’ll admit I am not someone who has their life (or memory) together so airport security scares me. My memory’s a sieve that becomes a bowl with a hole in the bottom when any airport personnel look at me. When asked ‘Did you pack your bag?’ my usual response is to panic.  Is there a poisonous object I have accidentally packed? Am I secretly a drugs mule and next to my practical trainers there’s 10kg of cocaine I’ve just sneakily slipped in? Who knows. I don’t always act rationally. I have been known to go to a party in slipper socks and a tiara. Anything’s possible. So customs terrifies me.

But this time I thought I had it together. There had been meticulous packing, I had packed and repacked (mostly to ensure my Jeremy Corbyn calendar fitted in) to the point where I’m not sure I can look at a sock again without thinking about how many you can fit in a shoe (6). I felt ready. But I had forgotten one small detail. I would be with my whole family. Now, the Wilshers are not exactly quiet. Or in any way normal. Think the Von Trapps but swap the music for dad jokes and the sexy edelweiss singing uncle for my dad in socks and sandals. We’re big, we’re loud and we occasionally yodel.

So, I’d made it to the airport. We’d convened as a family in the baggage queue. Stories of mum’s bowels and Matthew’s wind were shared. Same old. We make it to the front of the queue and here’s when I get a bit cocky. I think, yeah I can make lighthearted conversation with this lovely man, no need for strange possible drug smuggler Claire to make an appearance. So I chat, I banter even, and I think I hear him say ‘It’s my birthday’. Obviously in my holiday enthusiasm I shout ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY!’.

In hindsight it may have been wise to check with people before your whole family launch into a full choir version of happy birthday. In hindsight it may have been wise to not get your brother to check Jakov’s name so that the song has extra personal touch. In hindsight, it may also be wise to warn your dad that just because you have sung Jakov happy birthday that does not mean it is acceptable to say ‘Oh brilliant now you won’t have to take the drugs out of your suitcase Claire’.

It is safe to say it was not Jakov’s birthday. It is also safe to say he did not find Dad’s joke funny.

What Jakov had actually said was, ‘I’m having a bad day’.

Well, you live and you learn.