I recently took a week off and headed to Morocco to get a little bit of sun. When we got off the plane we duly headed towards immigration/passport control. It seemed to me that several other planes had landed at the same time because the queues were substantial.

However, there must have been 14 or 15 immigration boxes in service so I assumed it wouldn’t take long for us to get through.

Of course, I was met with the dilemma of deciding which particular queue to join.

Which one is moving the fastest, is it easier to process families rather than individuals, etc. I was tired so I just joined the one nearest to me.

But it wasn’t long before I began to muse that I had picked the slowest queue and felt that every other queue was moving faster than mine.

I suppose most people were thinking along the same lines because, let’s face it, most people are as nutty as I am.

Having realised that the thought process of “why did I pick the slowest queue?” would not make the queue go any quicker, I relaxed a little, happy in the knowledge that I’d get through passport control eventually.

Such zen-like insight lasted all of two seconds because I noticed that a rather sly fellow passenger behind me was inching her way up the queue, under the guise of trying to see was there a delay at the top.

Rather than standing behind me, in her rightful position, she had gained ground and was now level with me at my shoulder. “Get back, get back” I wanted to yell at her. Instead, I turned to look at her (who am I kidding, glare at her) but she blithely ignored me and continued to strain her neck as if trying to see ahead to the top of the queue.

I was incensed. Surely to heavens she wouldn’t have the audacity to inch ahead of me, what was the world coming to?

I pushed my wheely suitcase in front and slightly to the right of me to ensure it was now also in front of her.

Oh yes, I was marking my territory. If she wanted to overtake me, she would be blocked by my suitcase. Ha, that’ll show her.

It worked. She was stopped in her tracks and inched back to her rightful position in the queue, where she spent the next 20 minutes or so mumbling under her breath, sighing with irritation and commenting to her partner how ridiculously slow the whole thing was.

This is how we relax. This is how we unwind. This is how we holiday.

But we cannot admit this, so we pretend, we edit and we post selfies of ourselves on Facebook telling the world of anonymous friends that we’re having a ball in Morocco.

We say that we are taking a break to get away from it all. Impossible. As the saying goes: “Everywhere you go, there you are.”

I wonder if the space travellers hell bent on living on Mars realise this? CL