No more checkpoint Charlie.
No more permits.
And, hallelujah, NO MORE traffic delays.
Well, maybe.
The unprecedented step of closing the NSW-Victorian border five months ago affected almost every part of our lives.
It’s split families apart, closed businesses, forced students to learn from home, stopped employees going to work and frustrated the hell out of motorists.
Common sense became less common thanks to government bureaucracy and foolish felons thinking they could get away with hiding everything from drugs to people in their cars.
We even heard of one dingbat who tried to bribe a police officer at the Barmah bridge crossing.
Like that ever-reliable classic about twin towns (or two cities), it has been the worst of times and the best of times.
As for the worst, here is one scenario I will certainly not miss.
Child one is invited to a birthday party in Moama at 1pm.
At 11.45am, I go online to check out the live bridge camera and see, unsurprisingly, traffic is bumper-to-bumper, yet again.
A decision is made to leave at noon, and buy a present before heading over the bridge, which should have cleared by then.
On the way to finding said present, I discover the traffic has receded. Great, I think. That will give us plenty of time to find a gift, and make our way across the border.
Oh, how optimistic I was.
After an agonising 45 minutes of finding the ‘‘perfect present’’, we scramble back into the car with 15 minutes to spare.
But there’s a problem. My phone battery is dead. Which contains the girls’ permits. And their hardcopy print-outs are at home.
So back home we go - on the way noticing there are still no delays on the bridge. We may just make it after all, I muse.
I hurriedly pull up in my driveway, child one runs into the house to grab permit. And we’re off again.
Yet, in true Murphy’s Law fashion, that five-minute detour saw the number of cars deciding to cross the bridge multiply by 200.
Leaving me and child one stuck 1km from the border, inching forward at a snail’s pace for another half-hour.
Which meant I was subjected to ‘‘we’re going to be late’’ every single minute of that tedious trip.
By the time I arrive at the party, drop off complaining child and return home, it is almost time to pick her up again.
That is just one example of the daily chaos I, as well as many families in the twin towns, have had to endure because of the border closure.
But, for all its downsides, the bridge blues offered one significant benefit.
The checkpoint was definitely not short of a cute constable or sexy soldier.
Because, who doesn’t like a man in uniform?
MORE MAMA MAYHEM
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In a world of COVID-19, savour the small things
Mama finds perks to mask wearing
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