Published in On Our Selection News, July 24, 2014

Always let your conscience, and fear of criminal charges, be your guide.

I’m one of those people that cringe myself out of watching certain situations unfold in fictional scenarios which are presented to me through the medium of television. I blame my overpowering empathy. I’m a feeler. I’m deep. That’s why I can no longer watch Jam’ie: Private School Girl – not because Chris Lilley should be creating new mockumentaries instead of riding off the success of Summer Heights High (P.S. Sam. I want my DVDs back. Don’t pretend you don’t have them because I know you do. You know exactly what I’m talking about) but because I feel far too embarrassed for her that I physically can’t stand it. I have to pretend movies finish differently.

If the end is too distressing, I feel it in my stomach. I haven’t even seen Human Centipede and I have to pretend the ending was just someone making it up because I can’t handle it. But it’s when people try to cover up their crimes in movies/television/radio soaps I can’t handle the most. I don’t handle guilt very well, and apparently I am a terrible liar, so I’m really not set up to handle those situations. Plus, I must have seen Disney’s Pinocchio at a pivotal point in my development, because that cricket is in my ear telling me to let my conscience be my guide. I suppose I’m lucky that it was only Jiminy Cricket from that movie who informed my childhood psyche, as the distress of the uncomfortably suggestive “Pleasure Island” scene with boys turning into donkeys and grabby men could have really messed me up.

Anyway, watching these characters try to deal with their guilt and avoid trouble really eats me up. Which is why I have a confession to make: I’ve hit something with my car. And I caused some damage. Yep. While pulling into the driveway of my sister’s house, I touched the garage door with the front of my car. Technically, you could say, I hit it. Rammed it. Smacked into it. Who cares if I was going one kilometre an hour and didn’t even startle the easily spooked dog with the noise? I was a criminal. I inflicted damage to the structure of my sister’s hard-earned bricks and morter. Her castle. Her home. Forever altered by a gentle nudge of my bumper bar.

Upon inspecting the door with her boyfriend, it was suggested that maybe she didn’t need to know. There was minimal visible damage, and the door still opened and closed as per usual. Sure, it probably made sense to “forget about it”, but I’ve seen I Know What You Did Last Summer, and I really don’t think I could handle the smell associated with a boot load of live bait in my car. Or, you know, the plunging of a fishing hook into my chest.

I wasn’t about to involve her boyfriend and his friend who happened to be visiting at the time in some kind of guilt-laden secret circle of impending death (although, as the female lead who wanted to tell the truth, I was most likely to survive)! So, guided by my conscience, and fear of being Jennifer Love Hewitt, I overcame my fear of being roused on and confessed via text. After all this tense build up, her response, “Oh dear… oh well,” was a little anti- climactic. A hook in the chest would have been a more thrilling end to this column. Maybe I should have hit the door harder.