The political atmosphere in Northern Ireland was turning for the better in 2007 despite the premature death of progressive Loyalist David Ervine. Sinn Fein were waving flags for the PSNI instead of pickaxe handles. A new comedy duo in Stormont, the chuckle brothers, was a sellout! —Well to some of their former comrades they were. Nevertheless, we all loved each other, having been only misguided for the previous four decades. It was only a wee misunderstanding.

Lifestyles too had transformed with property values doubling in the previous three years. Everyone was a wannabe yuppie. In bars or offices men no longer talked about six pack stomachs or bulging biceps. The most important thing for the virile Ulsterman was not the size of his anatomy — but the size of his decking. The common football top was supplanted with the chic Gant sweater tied around the shoulders. The talk in the bars was no longer about offside rules or yellow cards in soccer. Now it was a question of either a single or a double egg white in this drink bartender. Northerners wanted texture, depth, a drinking experience, not just liquid. Vulgar pints of cheap lager were dumped for the bijou cocktail or whiskey sour.

 

Quality over quantity.

    It was all about size.

      Smaller was bigger.

         Less was more.

           

Holidays and weekend breaks to Bundoran or Bournemouth were long forgotten. We were international tourists now. It was in this context that I was also subsumed by the yuppie holiday tsunami. I decided I would take my wife and three children on a life changing holiday. Like the bijou cocktail drinker I wanted an experience. But one destination would not be satisfactory for the peripatetic globe trotting supermarket manager. No— Phileas Fogg from Portrush booked a three week international excursion to Canada to explore the Rocky Mountains linked with an attack on Pearl Harbour in Hawaii.

From Dublin we flew out to Vancouver staying in a luxurious hotel for four days. The highlight being the lookout tower in the Harbour Centre, with its all glass exterior lift that sent my daughter into hysterics refusing to enter. We hired a Winnebago to discover the Rockies staying in the resort town of Banff. The thirty foot machine was a veritable hotel on wheels replete with generous bed space, kitchen and bathroom with a shower. Nominating myself as driver I climbed behind the wheel convinced I was Lewis Hamilton. On the highway I asked my wife Carole why all the motorists were flashing their lights whilst driving towards me, unaware Canadians drive on the right. After a close encounter with a cyclist on a roundabout the family mutinied, installing Carole as the captain.

At Banff I was gobsmacked at the vastness of the campsite. As far as the eye could see were RVs the exact same brand and colour as ours. White, blue and red with the company logo at the front and sides. I could identify no other type of vehicle in the entire park. It was an ocean of Union Jack colours reminiscent of V Day outside Buckingham Palace. Each vehicle had its bespoke parking and charging space. At random spots in the park were recreational entertainment spaces. Adjacent to these areas were communal showers and laundry areas. 

In the same way it’s de rigueur for the alpha male to take ownership of barbecue duties  I decided I was in charge of breakfast, cooking fried bacon baps every morning waking up the kids with the blinding smoke. Carole assumed command of the lunch menu. For dinner every evening we went to the main restaurant hub in the park. Most evenings there was a scramble for the shower in the Winnebago. We took turns on who would use the communal washing area so we all could be ready for eating at the appropriate time. I often pulled rank on getting showered first but the day before we were due to leave I was deported by familial decree to the communal wash area armed with a giant towel and a bottle of shampoo.

Now for transparency I will admit I get lost every time I visit Ikea or take a toilet break in a multiplex cinema often ending up at a different film. It was a miracle I found the wash area in the first instance. After my ablutions were complete I gave myself a cursory rubdown as the washroom was like a wind tunnel. Feeling the biting cold I tied my towel around my waist jamming the shampoo in between the cotton and my protruding belly.

Away I went in pursuit of my temporary home. The vista that appeared before me was nothing other than a galaxy of identical Winnebagos. Everywhere I looked I saw red white and blue. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Winston Churchill asked me for a light for his cigar. Like little red riding hood lost in the forest I wandered around for an eternity. I remembered that the vehicle to the left of ours had a child’s bike outside. My relief was greater than a traffic warden writing a ticket on a double yellow when I saw that bike again outside our neighbouring vehicle.  Delighted, I opened the door to find my home empty. Assuming the family had gone to the restaurant I started to dry my naked body.

 

 Then I smelt the coffee.

     Literally.

        Not metaphorically.

           But nobody in my family drank coffee.

              We never bought any coffee.

                 We didn’t have a coffee pot on the cooker.

                     Why was I looking at one now?

                         And why was I looking at two heads?

                            Two female heads peering over a couch.

                                Looking like a pair of human periscopes!

 

With the mouth of a confused trout I stood looking at them in disbelief as I tried to wrap the towel around my rotund torso.

       I was all thumbs.

           The towel fell off.

              Crumbling to the floor.

                 Like a collapsed soufflé.

                    I covered my lower region with crossed hands.

 

They looked at me more confused than horrified as I stood there afraid to remove my hands which were still crossed like a referee signalling —no foul.  Chatting to each other in an accent that sounded German they pointed downwards exclaiming

 

es ist so kleiner gegenstand

es ist so kleiner gegenstand

 

Then they started to laugh. My mouth now a sherbet fountain of shame and humiliation I reached for my towel exiting the vehicle faster than a gazelle evading a lion. In my haste I tripped over the dangling towel landing sideways on the hard clay pathway. I howled in pain as the towel peeled away, exposing my naked body —which was not unlike that of a beached whale, to the gauntlet of tourists that had now lined the makeshift avenue. The Germans were still laughing…

   …louder now

        and pointing…

           …pointing at my nether region announcing to the world

 

es ist so kleiner gegenstand

es ist so kleiner gegenstand

 

The tourists didn’t really understand them but got the gist of the message. I perceived they were mocking me more than the Roman soldiers at Christ on the cross. The adrenaline in my body surpassed the pain as I rose to run away clinging on to the towel like a lifeboat rope, dashing in every direction. But all I saw were vehicles of the same colour and brand. I thought I heard the Germans lamenting

 

But…it wasn’t them…

 

…It was worse than that.

It was my ten year old daughter shouting through suppressed laughter waving her arms toward heaven like a hysterical train dispatcher warning of impending doom.

 

—Daddy daddy what are you doing?

—We are over here!

 

 

              Faster than Usain Bolt I sprinted to the door witnessing my speechless wife bent over as if having received a blow to the solar plexus as my other two children collapsed into a cacophony of laughter. Locking myself inside the Winnebago, I closed the curtains tighter than a Cavan man’s wallet.

 I might as well have been on the wooden stocks on the public square getting pelted with rotten fruit. My family demanded admittance so vehemently I acquiesced on condition they wouldn’t laugh. Fully clothed I peeled back the curtains to witness my German friends coming towards our vehicle, forcing me to dive commando like, behind the sofa as they knocked the door. Suspecting it was the reenactment of the Nazi public shaming of 1938 I cowered under a cushion. Still smirking, they handed my wife my shampoo.  I imagined they were whispering

 

es ist so ein kleiner gegenstand

es ist so ein  kleiner gegenstand

 

A few days later in a luxurious hotel on Waikiki Beach Hawaii I saw a tour guide drinking at the bar. I introduced myself enquiring if she could speak German. A nod indicated yes. I produced the piece of paper that recorded the expression my German admirers had uttered. Although I had used incorrect spelling she informed me in pigeon English it translated as

 

It-is-such-a-small-object

It-is-such-a-small-object

Hoisting her bijou cocktail within my eye-line, she smiled, wriggling her small finger at me, oblivious of my indignity. I staggered back to my sun-lounger in a semi catatonic state,  reassuring myself

 

Less is more.

Less is more

And I have three children to prove it.