Definitely not a serial killer

Hi, nice to see you again. It’s been a month since my last confession, drink, post, and nice to see that pretty much nothing has happened in the world since then.

Today’s post is a collection of different diary entries, drawings and ‘bits’ from the crumb pile. I’d hinted at something bigger and chunkier that I was working on in last month’s post, and that’s still ongoing. It’s sort of taken on a life of its own, and I’ll share more on that in the coming weeks and months, but I think it’ll probably be getting turned into both a post and a book/zine.

Realistically, my next post will most likely be out in around three of four weeks’ time. I promise this is not me winding everything down, I’m just enjoying, and trying to embrace, a slower cadence of publishing at the moment. It’s allowing me to work and play around on the things I’m most excited about, and I hope that it will come across that way when you’re reading the posts.

Thanks for being here, and I hope you enjoy the post.

As a result of being full-time house-sitters, my wife and I have cleaned a lot of dog buttholes in the last 12 months.

On the homepage of the house-sitting website we are members of, there is a stock image of a couple on the beach laughing with a Golden Retriever (the Golden Retriever isn’t laughing, but seems happy). It’s a nice photo, but I can’t help but think there is a distinct lack of photos of say, a couple hunched over a laundry sink cleaning diarrhoea from a Cavoodle’s ‘toilet area’ and back legs. Or even photos of a couple trying to dry a Cavoodle with a towel outside, who - without any shame whatsoever, despite moments earlier having been riddled with diarrhoea - is now trying to furiously hump the towel.

It wouldn’t need to be a lot of photos like this, just a few. Enough to provide a more balanced picture of the lifestyle so people don’t get the wrong idea and think it’s all sitting on beaches laughing with Golden Retrievers.

I can’t argue with advice like this. Having said that, I couldn’t quite bring myself to open the door.

Recently, we met up with a couple about a potential new house-sit that we’d applied for. Towards the end, after a really nice interaction, the husband joked ‘well as long as you’re not serial killers’, to which KB and I both laughed, and I replied ‘only on the weekends’. Instantly, I found myself worrying if my comment came off as suspicious. If using a joke to deflect is what a guilty person might do.

I have no idea what prompted this line of thinking to enter my mind, but by then it was too late, and I very quickly noticed a familiar thing happening to me. Similar to when you are walking out of a shop trying not to look nervous in front of the security person doing bag checks. Logically and practically, it makes no sense to feel nervous because you know you haven’t stolen anything, or - and I can’t believe I have to write this - because you know you’re not a serial killer. However, the desire to appear normal and trustworthy is now all consuming. And in moments like these, suddenly becoming hyper aware of your whole body is destabilising. It’s like everything is running on autopilot and then someone hands you the controls of your entire body and says: here, you drive. And now you’re trying to manually control your own hands and eyes in a way which most strongly communicates: safe, trustworthy, and definitely not a serial killer.

The whole thing played out in a matter of seconds, and was of course, totally fine (unless there’s been an anonymous tip-off that I’m not aware of). But it’s a very strange and disconcerting thing to witness something like this happening in your own brain. And to feel momentarily powerless to stop it. Especially as it turns out, the comment was actually the guy just setting himself up for a punchline: well as long as you’re not both serial killers...we can’t have four of us in the same room!

A good joke, and one that I completely squashed with my own gag because I was scrambling to keep it together.

Later, KB and I debriefed about this and realised that we had both experienced the exact same irrational reaction. I was surprised and relieved to hear that it wasn’t just me, but also slightly concerned about the fact that if we ever get framed for murder, it probably isn’t going to work out well for either of us.

I’m happy to report too that the house-sit has since been agreed upon. Under the proviso of course that any serial killing be done on the weekends, as previously stated, and that the cat be brought in before nightfall because of local foxes in the area.

I like the sentiment behind heritage listed buildings. I think it’d be a great initiative if this got expanded further, and every citizen was allocated one building that they could heritage list. A place special to them that they could protect from ever changing or getting knocked down.

For example, before it was demolished, I would have heritage listed my grandparents’ old house. Along with the structure being left intact, protection would also be extended to the interior and all the decor, including furnishings and upholstery, even the appliances. Not to mention the white plastic outdoor setting, the fluffy foot carpet at the base of the toilet, and even the 80s print of the nude woman lying on the Lamborghini, left behind on the wall of the granny flat by my uncle when he was living there. It would also include the glass biscuit jar in the kitchen, which could only be filled with the classic Arnott’s selection tray, but always a conspicuously low number of Monte Carlos. Although on some occasions, the biscuit jar should also be filled with a very plain, very dry biscuit, favoured by the adults for dunking but very poor eating by themselves.

It would obviously be a complete nightmare for anyone who lived in one of these places in the present day. And whilst the amount of red tape around planning permits would almost certainly wear you down after a while, I like to think that this would be balanced out by how hugely rewarding it would be for the house owners. Yes, the resale value is in the toilet, but at least one person’s memory place is being preserved and safeguarded against greedy developers, unruly renters, and the general sands of time.

Everything about being an international hit man sounds quite thrilling except for the whole killing part of it. It always seems so exciting: jetsetting around the world, wearing disguises, the fake passports, spying on people in cafes. And then someone gets killed and it feels like such a shame. That’s the part that turns me off.

I think the appeal of books and TV series and movies about hitmen is the allure of being able to suddenly escape your life - to be whisked away and start afresh. Luckily I don’t have a life I want to escape from, but having said that, if for example someone were to approach me in the midst of a weekly food shop, and present me with a briefcase filled with foreign money, a fake passport and a plane ticket - I would still say no - but there might be a brief pause in there, that’s all I’m saying.

There was a man I used to see every morning on a daily commute. He was tall, with long, slicked back hair, always wearing an impeccable suit, and most notably, carried a shiny, chrome briefcase. He looked exactly how a hitman would look.

It was only when I thought about it more that I realised he was most likely harmless. This guy looked too much like a hitman, that was his problem. He was probably just a guy with an ordinary government job. Perhaps someone living out a fantasy, brought on by a particularly harrowing weekly food shop.

I think the thing that elevates bananas above most other fruits is that you can give them little jobs to do. For example, sometimes if I have some fruits that are still quite green, I’ll leave them out on the kitchen bench under the close supervision of a banana. Then after a few days, all the fruit will be nice and ripe. It’s a little bit like a fruit mentorship program.

There are times when I strongly identify as a writer, and other times when I find myself feeling unsure of that label. Recently we have been pet sitting a Labrador and somewhat surprisingly, I’ve found that this has helped my confidence enormously.

It brings to mind all those author profiles in the back of books. Black and white photos of writers seated at their desks, with a dog curled up at their feet. Which for some reason, from my memories at least, always seemed to be a Labrador. And so while I haven’t published as much work lately, working in a study with a Labrador sleeping next to me, I can’t help but feel that this is doing a lot for my image as a writer.

Lastly, I came across these two recently reenacting their favourite scene from Titanic. While I was taking their photo, they asked if I wouldn’t mind using my phone to play the hit song ‘My Heart Will Go On’ by Celine Dion while they were posing. I said that I did mind, actually, as it would probably mess up my whole algorithm on Spotify. I mean, I’m not a fan of the algorithm as it is, but imagine what Celine Dion is going to do to it. I offered to hum the song instead and they said they’d think about it, but I could tell they weren’t all that interested.

Hey, hope you enjoyed that. Let me know if you’re interested in taking part in my fruit mentorship program. Spots are limited (there’s only so much kitchen bench space). Other than that, drop me a comment below, give the post a like (if you enjoyed it), and take care wherever you are.

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