Day Trip & The Drip

So yesterday we set out on a drive of almost two hours to a beach suburb in Newcastle, me in the back behind my thirteen year old because having both my kids in the back seat together is dancing with the devil, and will lead to repeated angry demands of Stop It Or I'll Turn This Car Around And We'll Go Home Now.  So I was in the back with my ten-year-old, and one of his little buddies who came out for the day with us.  Master 13 thought it would be a good idea to move his chair back suddenly, thus almost wedging my knees under my chin.  I tell you, kids these days are very unappreciative of what we do for them, with day trips to the beach and all.  My memories of going for a drive with my parents were usually with me stuck between them both in the front, both of them smoking Craven As, and neither of them acceding to my request to put the window down.  We would arrive at our destination with me the colour of a ripe avocado flesh.  Meanwhile, my three older siblings would be squabbling in the back over the Sanyo tape recorder, which would be blaring 'See My Baby Jive'.  Funny how much I love that song, when it should be evoking memories of feeling like I'm crawling through an ashtray.  Other day trips were usually to a rodeo somewhere, because after my father retired from competing, he was in great demand as a judge for events.  I recall being sprawled out in the back of the station wagon, a ubiquitous family vehicle of the Seventies, and I could see my father's head over the back of the driver's seat, and in particular his akubra.  On one trip, we came home with a sheep in the back of the car, and I had to share this space with the woolly beast with the glaring yellow eyes, and the stink of stale lanolin coming from it's dag-and-bindii tangled fleece.  I think I was a bit nervous of it.

So yesterday's trip was relatively luxurious by those standards of yesteryear.  I recall from trips when I was a kid Dad would park the car wherever he could, the nose of the vehicle usually facing the fenced area of the rodeo 'ring'.  Yesterday we found one scabby spot in the car park, and when Mr Bingells put on the blinker to turn in, hit the brake and shouted, 'Oh, come on!'  I looked up and saw this surfie dude standing in the spot.  We made gestures for him to move.  He shook his head.  Mr Bingells wound down his window and demanded to know the meaning of this tomfoolery.  The bloke explained he was minding the spot for someone.  Mr Bingells pointed out the illegality of this given the car park is a public spot.  'Sorry, mate,' said the dickhead, 'I'm minding it for my girlfriend.'  At this point, I stuck my head out and shouted, 'I don't care if you're minding it for the Queen, we've just driven for ages with kids!'  Mr Bingells said we had driven two hours, and an interloper pointed out to the dickhead that he could not in all seriousness expect to 'bags' a car space for someone in a public car park.  The dickhead ceded defeat and moved away, and Mr Bingells moved the car into the spot.  Mate, in the event you are watching this, for the sake of future generations can you have yourself sterilised, and not infect society with your gene pool?  That would be ever so lovely.