‘Do you get paid to act like an idiot?’ a middle-aged woman asked me while I re-adjusted the faux paunch in my Santa suit.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘What’s your excuse?’

She thumped me with her hand bag then jumped off at the next tram stop.

While my last remark may have been duly met I did come to the conclusion that some of the general public had the manners befitting a horde of Orks at a Hobbit tea party.

In my short time as Santa Clause on the Melbourne city circle tram, I had been bailed up by screaming drunks, ‘WHERE’S ME FRIGGIN BIKE, SANTA?!’; had my beard yanked down when I had mentioned to one sad individual that it was Christmas, that he should cheer up, that things could be worse, ‘like working in a bank’ – which, to my horrid surprise, he was; abused by Middle Park snobites for not singing Jingle Bells with enough allegro; had lewd remarks made by a gaggle of nurses whether Santa could fill their stockings; and lastly,  repeatedly asked as my glasses steamed up, ‘Gee, you must be hot in that suit, eh, Santa?’

While most of these incidents were like  water off a nun’s back, there was one thing that had me ready to Rudolph someone’s nose – asking for chocolate.

Despite making it clear to everyone that the chocolate in my Santa Sack was for children only (though I admit I readily helped myself to them), this did not dissuade adults. Some were positively rabid.

‘You don’t understand me. I want my chocolate!’ an American woman snipped at me with a tone that suggested I had infringed upon her constitutional rights, and then, as if I should care,  ‘I CAME ALL THE WAY FROM KENTUCKY, MISTER!’

Maybe I should’ve relented but it was much more satisfying  seeing a fully grown adult screaming for a Freddo Frog in forty degree heat.

‘What your name, mister?’

‘Santa.’

‘Don’t get snitchy with me. Your full name.’

‘Santa…Claus.’

‘I’m reporting you! I’m REPORTING YOU!’

I moved away from her  to the end of the tram and plied my Christmas charms on a five year old boy and presented him with a chocolate the Kentucky woman had screamed for.

To my surprise, his father snatched it out of my hands.

‘Hey, that ‘s – ‘

‘NO! NOOOOOOOO!’ he barked, his eyes wild. ‘We’re Jewish!’.

Apparently, I was supposed to know.

As he left in cloud of huff, I shouted in my big Santa voice, door open and pointing to the gold reindeers affixed to the side of the tram, dancing in the fake snow,  ‘WHICH PART OF “CHRISTMAS TRAM” DIDN’T YOU GET?!”

But no nothing prepared me for what I was about to experience on my last day: What does Santa do when he gets motion sickness?

There I was during a verse of ‘Tis the season to be jolly’ when I felt the sudden urge to purge. I ran to the back of the tram, barking like a seal to the driver’s compartment (it was an old W class tram), children and parents grabbing at me while I tried not to ho-ho-ho into their laps.

Unfortunately, the kids had followed me and their faces were nowpressed up against the partition window.  Thus I  found myself with the vexing question of how I was going to hurl? Would I simply rip the beard aside and break the magic for the kids or stay in character and let the muck pump and strain through it?

But before I knew it I was retching into the chocolate esky bag, beard above the top lip and doubled over. I could hear the cries of children ‘What’s wrong with Santa? What’s wrong with Santa?’ then suddenly fade as horrified parents yanked them away from ‘that thing at the back of the tram’.

I felt the tram stop. The driver’s face appeared and said or rather ordered me off at Swanston Street. I did, bag over the shoulder, soupy contents splooshing now like a ruptured spleen, only to be pulled into a firing line of Nikons from Japanese tourists. ‘Just won foto! Just won foto!’

I held one polite frozen moment then broke rank to the nearest bin, flipped up the beard and at last gave it a good ol’ ho-ho-hoooooooooo!

When I finished, the Japanese had gone. In their place was a small woman with a determined smile. She shoved a card in my hand. ‘Even Santa needs to get to heaven.’

I realised then, that yes, yes at last, the inevitable had happened: I was sick of being Santa.

Hopefully, all this whining might be able to get media attention, hopefully we’ll be able to get them to change their policies, hopefully…Father Christmas might really exists. Yes, I’m micturating in the metaphorical wind and I’ll admit defeat now. I think you get my point. Here’s my toxic experience on a recent trip to Bali (don’t judge me! We only wore our thongs on the plane!).

‘Your good-natured friends have agreed, under some duress, to drive across town and are now red-eyed with the pain of getting up at some un-Godly hour to drive you through what is now peak hour traffic to Tullamarine Airport. The conversations are short and snappy because they know they’ll be forced to pay for parking for the price of a mortgage on the space itself.

You never hear from them again.
You scrounge for trolleys which cost the princely sum of $8 for the two. Within a heart beat the term ‘Bastards!’ flies off your lips and flung a bit louder  to ‘Greedy Bastards’ when you find out that you’re being charged the price of a cinema ticket to have a bit of cling film whicked around your luggage in case you get ‘Chappelled’.

You then get stuck in the Virgin Check-In line that is moving at the sound of glaciers melting because ‘That Very Greedy Bastard, Mr Branson’ is too busy returning dividends to his shareholders and thus, for the sake of cost-cutting, does not open the remaining six check-in desks.
By now, you are out of pocket by $33 and another term blurts: ‘Greedy ‘Effing Bastards.’

Then off to Immigration and you notice there’s an improvement on the Branson Queue – it’s longer! Melbourne Airport Management, ‘Bigger Greedier Bastards’, are also too busy providing dividends to their shareholders to have more than six desks open. The line sprouts all the way back to the car park like a never-ending complaining caterpillar: ‘BASTARDS, BASTARDS, EFFING BASTARDS!’

You’re then herded back and forth like Australian cattle destined for an Indonesian abattoir while an out-of-work actor in an orange jacket spruiks the obvious ‘STAY IN LINE!’ (like, where were we intending to go? Oh, that’s right, on a plane! Surprised he wasn’t carrying a cattle prod), then corralled into Duty Free to be chased by shop assistants who hope you’ll knock over their expensive bottles of Dior that you’ll be forced to purchase).

Then into another line to buy a $4 coffee, go through security where you have to get rid of the $4 coffee and when you ask ‘Why?’ they say ‘They’re could be something in it’ and when you say ‘What? Caffeine?’ you get the special search (shoes off, belt off, pants off…you know where this is going. ‘No, I don’t think you’ll find an expresso up there, Officer. Let me down a pint of milk and I might be kind enough to brew you a cappuccino. I’ll withhold the flakes’) buy another coffee ($4.50 now because you passed an invisible border) and finally, finally, you get to the boarding gate with five minutes to spare where you immolate into flames of abuse when an epiphany smacks you in the face: ‘SO THIS IS WHY TERRORISTS TARGET AIRPORTS?’

Flying used to be fun. Now it’s a never-ending tedium of queues, tiresome rules and expensive ones at that. You feel cheap and used like an airline vomit bag. The Greedy Effing Bastards have had their way with you again and as it’s the only major airport in Victoria you’ll know that you’ll consent to this ritual abuse once again screaming as the plane roars into the stratosphere ‘I HATE EFFING MELBOURNE AIRPORT!’

Ah, to think it used to be so much more…a paddock!

See ‘I HATE MELBOURNE AIRPORT’ on facebook and vent your spleen!