The one with the Angry Saffa

We left on the Friday (for Marrakech) from Heathrow which involved a 2hr boozey lunch with the work lads before heading off to the airport. I was in a rather happy mood and was trying to rub off on everyone we met. Unfortunately the x-ray guy was a complete tosspot and tried to rub us the wrong way. The girl had 2 clear bags full of liquids (as required now on flights) and we were told that this was unacceptable and could only take one. Deciding to make this guys day turn a little worse I decided that while the girl was combining hers in with mine to argue the point. It is not written anywhere that we are only allowed one anywhere near the x-ray machine. He said it was on the sign – which it wasn’t. He then said it was only on the sign at the start of the line – to which it wasn’t. He then said it was in the ‘flight regulations’ to which I replied I was happy to wait while he produced these ‘regulations’ for me to see. By this time we were ready to be on our way when someone in the line actually produced the e-ticket which states it. Alas this snooty man was correct. Unfortunately for him though I also read the fact that it was supposed to be a 1 litre plastic bag. The one they had provided was not even close to a litre so I decided to describe my disgust to this man for holding not only myself up but also the whole line with not providing us with a correctly sized bag. He was rather silent as I asked him to apologise to the whole line for this unnecessary delay and the fact that he should be leaving his attitude at home. His response was an embarrassed silence and I contently walked away.

After a resounding victory we had a bit of time to kill so we went to grab a 2 way ear phones plug so we could watch a movie on my PSP and both have sound. It took me some time to actually find what we were looking for and the Girl had lined up in anticipation as the queue was massive (which is a rather usual sight in the UK – I swear they see a line here and join it). As I reached her we had just hit the front of the line which had taken her about 10 minutes to get to. As the clerk called for the next person a gentleman quickly jumped in front of us (from the side) and asked a question about a camera. I figured it would be relatively quick and after the clerk said he did have the item in question the man said he would take it.

Deciding that I was on a role and not going to let this man interfere with the queuing system, I proceeded to let him know of his indiscretion. He turned around and in his most annoying Saffa accent declared that he was going to miss his flight because he was late. I stated that if he was going to miss it then there was no problem to join the back of the queue – a point the man ignored. Before I could say anything further, the girl jumped in front of the man and explained to the clerk about the line and we would appreciate he respect that. At this stage the Saffa was furious (if it was a cartoon there would have been steam shooting out the ears) and he through his package down and stormed off.

Content that we had beaten the queue jumper we apologised to the clerk for losing his 400 quid sale and produced our 2 pound item. While the girl was paying the Saffa decided to return to try and get some satisfaction from a verbal onslaught. “How can I explain to my son that I couldn’t get his birthday present because of some rude people not letting me grab things in a hurry?”
“The question is how can you look your son in the eye and tell him that you waited until the last minute to try and get a present for him, and didn’t have the decency to ask the people who queued up before you if you could please go ahead of them.”
“But my gift is more important and more expensive!”
“Are you that arrogant to believe that you are more important than anyone else in this line to even ask permission to go ahead because you’re in a hurry?”

At this stage I thought he was going to explode with anger so I mentioned about the apparent impending departure of his flight and wished him well in trying to convince his son that he actually does love him when he brings home no gift.