Big drama at Bowen

Bless me, Father for I have sinned. Today I have taken the Lord’s name and not just once.  I have sworn at my children and Tony and God himself.  I think God may forgive me if he knew what happened and it was like this.

     Things started out slowly on Wednesday, the day we left friends, Peter and Bernie Thorsen's place in Mackay where we stayed last night.  We were heading to Mission Beach to catch up with Cathy and Glen and the Nixon tribe for the night. 

     First we nipped into Jayco to find a replacement water cap that somehow flew off somewhere between Belyando Crossing and Clermont. No luck.  Jayco happened to be located right next to a MacDonalds and I was seized by an uncharacteristic generosity.

     ‘Hey, kids, how about MacDonalds for a treat?’

     The kids looked at me as though they may be under physical attack and slowly realised I had offered them something otherwise forbidden.  They turned to their father who reiterated my offer and there were whoops of joy all round.

     Tony wasn’t sure about using the drive-thru with a camper trailer so the kids and I marched inside.  As a very infrequent patron of MacDonalds I had forgotten burgers and chips are not served until after 11 am.  If you arrive before 11, you are stuck with the breakfast menu and there's not a French fry in sight and no reason to have Maccas. 

     It’s not often my children agree with me or each other, but we all agreed to wait till we got to Bowen to buy MacDonalds.  Perhaps it was the lingering effect of the wonder of watching last night’s lunar eclipse.

     There were road works out of Mackay, much traffic en route Proserpine and for a while we were stuck behind a yacht, sailing the bitumen sea on wheels, very slow ones.

    The kids must have sensed this was our last day of travel as we needed to have the trailer back by midday on Thursday.  That or they’d had a gut full of being squashed into a small space that hurtles along a highway that has looked exactly the same since we left Cairns.

     They traded insults and whinged, especially Kibby and Seffy complaining about the wet clothes I needed to get dry.  I had hung them over head rests and handles.  Yesterday I had bundled some damp clothes in a freezer bag and eight hours later, they smelled like a bag of dirty old socks. So I did a load of washing at Bernie and Peter's and hung the clothes in the car.

     'I don't want Seffy's knickers in my face,' moaned Kibby.

     ‘Just shut up and leave the clothes,’ I hissed.

     'Don't yell, Cate,' said Tony.

     They kept asking, ‘How long till we get there?’

     Like a sign from God, the Proserpine Caltex with Red Rooster billboard whizzed by.

     ‘In 2.4 km we can stop and get some Red Rooster.’

     There were mumbles of agreement.  Except Red Rooster is frighteningly expensive.

     ‘Let’s just buy a family pack,’ said Sutchy.

     A family pack consisted of a hot chook and some chips and cost $30.95.  A burger was $11.95 and a wrap $9.95.  I was incensed by the cost of shit food.  And I was tired and hungry (forgot to eat in the rush to leave) and I needed to pee except the toilet was being cleaned.  I went to use the male toilet and there was, unsurprisingly, a male using it.

     How do people afford to buy shit food?  As if there was a second lunar eclipse in 24 hours, the kids agreed to wait till we reached Bowen.  If I am going to buy shit food, I’d like to pay a bit less for it and MacDonalds offered exactly that.

     When I returned to the toilet, there was a crowd of women and men waiting.  I had to hold on till Bowen.  And the kids were driving me crazy.  Seffy had finished her Nancy Drew before we’d arrived in Baralaba and Kibby read Diary of a Wimpy Kid yesterday.  Since they had opened their worlds to reading, it was my job as a good mother to make sure they had books to read.  I’d grab a few in Bowen.

     Somehow we got to Bowen an hour and a half later than the average driver from Mackay.  Then we got lost in Bowen.  Apparently I missed the turn off because the sign, ‘turn left at Richmond Street’ was so small we were past the Richmond Street turn off before I could read the words.  Sutchy reminded me of my navigational incompetence for the next 72 hours. 

     After a tour of Bowen’s back streets, a lovely young woman in a work wear store gave me good news - easy directions to MacDonalds - and bad news - there was no book shop in Bowen.  She smiled politely when my jaw dropped.

     ‘You can try Country Target right next to MacDonalds.’

     There was a tirade from Sutchy along the lines of ‘Fuck, Mum, I told you we should have gone left before’ and ‘Fuck, Mum the kids don’t even want books so why do we have to buy them?’ We eventually got to MacDonalds just before I strangled Sutchy.

     Peace reigned supreme once the children were feasting on cheeseburgers and fries.  I took the opportunity of sneaking into the shopping complex to buy books and food and to have a break from my family.

     Country Target did not have books.  The newsagent did not have books for children, but there were a few Mills and Boons and Dean Koontz novels.  Seffy loves mysteries, but I didn’t think she was ready for Dean Koontz.  I read one in 2005 and I am still not ready for Dean Koontz.

     Woolworths did not have books, but there were a plethora of DVDs.  I settled on a couple of notepads and a National Geographic to keep the kids occupied.  Wishful thinking I know, but Ghandi preached, Be the change you want to see in the world. 

     I bought something healthy for Tony’s lunch and because I was so frustrated that I could not buy a children’s book in Bowen I decided to throw nutritional caution to the wind and chose a can of tuna in oil, rather than brine, for myself.  I have high cholesterol and wasn’t sure if tuna in oil is tuna oil and contains cholesterol.  Today I thought, Stuff it, there’s a place for risk taking. 

     We packed the food in the car with the intention of continuing our very slow way to Mission Beach … made slower when Kibby knocked the lid off the 575 gram jar of Gail’s Just Right Brazilian Cherry jam that was on the floor with the peanut butter from yesterday.    After half an hour in the locked car at midday, the jam was now the consistency of cooking oil. The sticky mixture flooded a pillow and the floor … and everything on the floor.

It is perfectly okay to cry over spilled jam.

     And that is when I sinned … and sinned … and sinned.

     A half hour later the floor was sort of cleaned and we were on our not-so-merry way.  Then I text Cathy to let her know we may not make it to Mission Beach and I dropped a few of the details about the traffic, the fighting and the jam.

     She text back:  That’s why people have iPads for their children.

     Jesus Christ, after all the frigging children I’ve had I still don’t get it.  They need their own iPads.  And if I had one of those portable DVD players I’ve seen hooked to the headrests of wiser travelling parents (and had I not been so smug about parents using technology to subdue their children), I would have been able to buy a few of the hundred DVDs that were available in Woolies and no one would have reason to whinge during the 450 km drive to Mission Beach, ETA 7pm, even with a pair of knickers in their face.  Fuck, fuck, fuck.  That's what happens when you spend years on a small island where you don't get to do road trips and work all of this out.  
     Anyway, I had plenty of time to make a start on a few hundred Hail Marys and Our Fathers!