I just played complaint knifey-spoony with my father and lost big time.

I haven’t been sleeping very well lately and when I become super tired for an extended period of time, I get very whingey. Usually I can complain like a demon, but deprive me of some sleep and I can hit new lows of patheticery even Kanye West would think twice about tweeting. So when my hotline blung (I’d like to think that the correct way to refer to hotline bling in past tense for is hotline blung but I haven’t any real authority to make that call) earlier tonight, it could only mean one thing: a good ol fashioned venting. But the problem was the bling was blung by my home number, and my father had done the dial.

I briefly detailed my ailments, and then my father proceeded to tell me about a teenager with cerebral palsy who loves cars but can’t get his licence and is watching all his mates hoon about from the sidelines. “It could always be worse,” he told me.

This is how it always goes when I attempt to trade my woes for sympathy with my father. I present my meagre quandaries and he shows them up. It’s almost like a competition. To better explain this phenomenon, let me put this scenario into pop culture context:

Imagine the scene from Crocodile Dundee when Paul Hogan is threatened with a pocketknife by a New York City Punk. The missus is very concerned and reacts just as the hooligan wanted. But leathery old Mick barely reacts and whips out his shard of steel so large it could have been a surfboard, dwarfing the other knife scaring the thug and his mates away. Now imagine that instead of the little baby pocketknife, the New York City Punk is actually armed with a fist full of complaints – job’s a joke, you’re broke, love life’s DOA, the standard issues facing Ross, Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Joey and Chandler (although apparently affordable housing was never one of them). Sure, they’re not fun but they’re not particularly impressive life obstacles.

Then imagine my father being completely unmoved, chuckling in an eerily cheerful way. At this point I, the flamboyantly misguided youngster wearing old lino for a jacket thinking my weapon was especially remarkable, start looking from left to right, not sure what this crazy Aussie bastard is going to do next. My father then reaches into his native animal leather jacket and pulls out a misfortune so depressing it would not only make Australian Story, but would also be referenced on commercial breakfast television presenters the next day.

My father wears an akubra, a lot of khaki and still carries a pocketknife around on his belt even though having an offensive weapon in a public place is an offence that attracts a custodial sentence. Aside form “Dad”, he is only referred to as “Macca”. He drives an old Defender ute with the back seats ripped out to allow the secure storage of chainsaws, bags of spanners and unexplained lengths of rope. So it’s not too hard to imagine my father in this scenario.

“That’s not a problem, THIS is a problem,” is, in essence, what he tells me every time.

You see, my parents are packing when it comes to problems. My mother had polio as a kid, had three spinal fusions (one of those after her pregnancy with me, which, weirdly, kind of makes me feel like I’m tough because I destroyed my mother’s body – I like to think I was a hulk baby who punched my way upward and tore open her scars from her previous c sections, ripping my way to freedom) and now has a permanent tracheostomy which means she has a tube hanging out her neck to help her breathe. My father, on the other hand, is of reasonably good health but spent time in orphanages, not knowing his father and not being able to afford shoes as a youngster.

So to these people, my problems are not real problems.

To make matters worse, my father is closet Catholic, which means he isn’t visually or verbally outward about his faith but has those guilt-ridden “help thy neighbour” or “think of those brothers and sisters less fortunate than you” sort of ideas pulsating through his veins like the overwhelming desire to dress like a beefy Marilyn Munroe and sing Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend in a room full of strangers. As much as he tries to ignore the sequins and feather boas of his true self, sometimes he will catch himself off guard and spend an afternoon moving furniture for a family who lost all their possessions in a fire or making sure his mother-in-law feels loved at Christmas. This is a bad thing when you want to wallow in your misery and be selfish. It’s especially bad when you’re fishing for sympathy. So instead of getting the deluxe triple dad Full House treatment when life gets me down, I get a combination of Mick Dundee, Abe Simpson and Maggie Smith’s character in the first half of Sister Act.

“There are plenty of other poor bastards out there who’ve got it a lot worse,” he tells me nearly word-for-word every time I start feeling sorry for myself.

Perhaps this is why I’ve become so good at complaining. I’ve had to compete with the best. My parents already set the benchmark pretty high in terms of setbacks, but raised the bar even higher by never feeling sorry for themselves. This is very annoying for me, their offspring, because if they don’t feel sorry for themselves for the shitty hand fate dealt them, I’m not entitled to wallow in self pity for anything less than they endured. If you can’t top a spinal tap, you’ve got nothing to whinge about.

You might say this is a good thing that offers a grounded perspective on the trivial woes that face a middle class white person like me, but for me there is nothing more decadent than sinking into a pit of pity. Wallowing is one of my favourite things to do – you get to eat family-sized portions of things with a single fork, you can watch as many Bette Midler movies as you want, you can wear jumpers than are three sizes too big for you and you can stare blankly into the abyss of your life. I love doing all of those things. Sometimes I think about having a fake break up weekend, when I get to enjoy all the perks of having a broken heart without all the lost emotional investment – I’m actually considering turning it into the next hottest retreat concept.

So it’s really unfair that I don’t have anything in my life that warrants marinating myself in misery. It’s not my fault I was properly vaccinated or came from a loving family. I didn’t choose this to happen to me. And for that matter, it’s not my fault I happened to be born in a country where my skin colour means I’m immediately accepted as the norm. It wasn’t my doing to be brought up in a stable home that always had food, electricity and no violence. It wasn’t my choice to be given an education. I didn’t decide to be heterosexual. And I certainly didn’t give the go ahead for my brain to fully develop in a normally-formed human body.

I didn’t get to be looked at differently because of the pigment of my skin, or be excluded because of the slant of my eyes. I didn’t get to be unable to participate in society because my brain works differently or my body spasms, contorts or doesn’t move. I didn’t get to be told my relationships were wrong or that I dressed like a freak. I didn’t get to be unable to keep up with schoolwork because I was hungry or bruised or tired from being up all night scared of what the next shouting match would bring. I didn’t get to not go to school or a doctor or have no bed or have no food to eat. I didn’t get to not be loved.

Yep. It’s pretty unfair alright. But I’m so good at complaining that I can complain about having nothing to complain about.

Last night I condemned someone to eating only the mediocre sandwiches at my funeral.

You don’t need to know the particulars of the conversation, but know that the context for such an exchange was laid by a drunk father figure, an overzealous whirl on the dancefloor and two grown men heavily skidding headfirst across loose gravel. Of course I turned an incident completely separate of me on its head to be all about me and establishing my superiority – my main objective in life – by considering how I would be affected should the chap die as a result of the incident. So, in a bid to circumvent my moral culpability, I told the young fellow, who I knew from my high school bus route, to consider seeking medical attention. My half-hearted suggestion was, in my mind, setting the pretence for my standing over his open grave with a smug look telling his cold, greying corpse “I told you so”. I would carry this all-knowing grin across the cemetery to the wake venue and help myself to the best array of the snacks knowing I did what I could and deserved that vanilla slice. Of course, this thought was communicated under the influence of three quarters of a bottle of Stone’s ginger wine, two beers, and at least four unwisely chosen whiskeys and could have gone over better. I can’t remember the phrasing, but I believe my icy retort banned the ungrateful fellow from any mildly exciting sandwich fillings on offer at my wake and, in no uncertain terms, a complete prohibition from mayonnaise of any kind.

This isn’t the first time I’ve started a petty hypothetical funeral war. Just before the Christmas break a co-worker and I were talking about hitting the highway home with considerable speed, when I steered the conversation from happy festive thoughts to our dramatic, fiery deaths.

Me: Wouldn’t it be great if we both crashed and died?

Less fabulous co-worker: Ummm

Me: Who do you reckon would have a bigger funeral?

*silence

Me: I’d like to think that my funeral would beat yours… People would be pretty distraught I reckon.

I then pointed out that while we were both from small towns and would expect a lot of those bastards to be upset, I had more separate pockets of friends who would be affected. Out of respect I tried to wrap up the conversation by implying that I would have only a fraction more mourners than him, but I think we both knew that if had have died on the same day, my funeral would have a longer guest list and extensive media coverage. Because when it all comes down to it, death is a competition.

I suppose it’s quite morbid, but it’s something to think about. It’s your last impact on the planet, so you not only don’t want to screw it up, but you want it to shit all over everybody else’s. We all have in the back of our minds the songs we want played at our funeral (The Vaccines’ Wetsuit to start off, Modest Mouse’s Float On and Daryl Braithwaite’s The Horses for the montage of flattering photos and Janet Jackson’s Escapade to lighten things up as they wheel my coffin out the door) and we all aim to create a significant, solemn traffic jam as the convey of mourners make their way on the longest route possible from the chapel to the cemetery, interrupting people’s days and only making them angrier because they can’t be angry at a dead person – there’s nothing more satisfying than an enraged person having to be respectful because of enforce societal norms. We all entertain this thought every now and then because we all know that death is coming for us.

I remember being three or fours years old laying on my parents bed feeling like an absolute queen because I had all that cushy space and was able to enjoy my Disney read-along-tape in solitude when it struck me. My mother came in to put some laundry in the cupboard when I asked her if everybody would die. Now my mother, for all her sweetness, can be alarmingly casual in scarring my young mind – like the time she told me that I was, indeed, a bit on the fat side after a funky tartan skirt from Target didn’t fit my rotund 11-year-old body. While I can’t remember the exact wording, my mother’s psychosis-inducing response went something like: “yep, everybody will die – you’ll die, I’ll die – everyone,” she said cheerfully before wheeling her trolley of clean clothes to another room leaving me to ponder my oncoming demise and the impending end of existence. Here I was just lust learning how to form symbols into English words when I was left attempting to rationalise the cosmic truth that we are all floating on a planet of death in a see of nothingness. I remember feeling as if someone had kneed me in the stomach and not much else, as I probably silently slipped into an psychotic episode. I probably soiled myself at the very least.

I have to say that my ability to comprehend death hasn’t really advanced far beyond the immediate panic that washed over my as ringleted child. My guess about what’s waiting for us in the great beyond is as good as anyone’s, but to distract myself from the eternal void, I have added a healthy dose of competiveness to the equation. I want my death to blow all others out of the water. I don’t care too much to the specifics, but I want to send shockwaves thought society when I do take my last breath. Whatever actually lies in my afterlife, I certainly hope it involves some sort of surveillance system to allow me to watch people crumble in my absence.

I want to know who will be so sad that they vomit, who tries to swindle whom out of my earthly possessions (maybe my collection of swan ceramics will become valuable one day) and what the brave person who volunteers to dress my dead body puts me in. But mostly I’m interested in who comes along to the party. I want to know who comes from out of the woodwork to pay their final respects and watch people deliberate on whether they knew me well enough to go to my funeral. I want to hold a hot and not contest from heaven (clearly that’s where I’ll end up because my heart is so big) and judge who dressed tastefully and who was obviously going to hook up with the cavalcade of beautiful mourners I attracted to my last hurrah. I want to hear what nice things people say about my in the several eulogies I will demand in my will, and how my bad qualities will be sugarcoated with the classic “she’s dead, we can’t call her out for the spiteful arse she was anymore” filter. Will the pretty fights I picked be referred to as “a passion for colourful debate”? Will my filthy potty mouth be categorised as “zest for vibrant language”? Will my unrelenting selfishness be painted as “being deeply introspective and unflinchingly dedicated to going after her happiness”?.

Like many, I cling to the desperate hope of an afterlife. I don’t want to float around in a state of unknowing, I fear what will happen to my consciousness and I am terrified by the thought of a everlasting black silence. But as Leanne Rimes and many an inspirational Instagram post will tell you, life goes on. If I’m dead in the ground while other people are living, I want their thoughts to be about me. If people are able to still enjoy the land of the living while I can’t, I want them to spend the rest of their eternity knowing my grand exit from this life was better than theirs. Because if you have to die, you may as well doing so in a way that makes everyone else feel inadequate and less loved. I may be dead, but I am still dominant. Finished, but fantastic. In the ground, but infinitely better than you could ever hope to be. I want to exit not gracefully, not humbly, but with a firework explosion of glitter boldly proclaiming to the world that I may be gone, but by god am I fabulous.

There’s nothing less relaxing than forcing yourself to relax.

I just got out of the bath after some friends sent me bath products in the mail to celebrate my birth. It was thoughtful gift, because apparently baths are tranquil, relaxing habits of women who do shit like run businesses while training for marathons and cultivating orchids. Successful women take time for themselves, and prolonging the washing ritual is one way to do that. After being pestered for evidence I had used the gifts, I finally succumbed to peer pressure and immerse myself in the depths of relaxation, or so I thought.

Now before you point out the obvious, I am aware that soaking in the tub is like sitting in a gently simmering oversized saucepan of dead skin cell soup. That hot water that is supposed to clean your skin merely extracts the grime lodged in your pores and creates floaties of filth that speckle the liquid like a teabag that has had its side split and leaves spill out. Sure, you use soap and everything, but everything you scrub off your body just becomes part of the ooze you’re floating around in. It’s not all that hygienic, when you think about it. So I showered off my stank before I filled up the tub, hoping this would be sufficient in preventing the creation of a salty broth infused with my juices.

Once clean, I filled up the tub and tossed in this grenade of colour and scents and confusing crackling sounds. The bathroom has this annoying feature which means you can’t have the light on without the exhaust fan blaring. I live in a rental so obviously cannot be trusted to use the fan when necessary, which means if I didn’t want to be laying in the dark, I’d be catching a cold from all the air blowing around. It wasn’t ideal but I also overcame that relaxation hurdle, carefully stringing fairy lights up in a way which would prevent them from falling into the water and electrocuting me, thus saving some poor soul from having to scape my wrinkled, water-logged body out of the tub some weeks later. I was almost ready to go when a thought struck me: the problem with baths is that there’s not a whole lot to do once you’re in the tub.

You’re just sitting left sitting in there in water all exposed with your own thoughts and a mess bun. After the candles are lit and the bath bombs fizzle off, you’re supposed to just sit there and relax. But you can’t really relax because the only thing for you to do is think. You can’t fall asleep because you’ll drown/be pulled to a watery death after a bath demon with grey, withered skin appears the second you close your eyes. You have to stay conscious at all times for the purposes of staying alive, which leaves you in the soul company of your own mind. Sure, this can lead to some calming mediation but it can also lead you down the path of picking apart every single decision that led you to dunking your body in green water on a Friday night instead of doing something fun, like drinking shots out of glasses duct taped to a ski with your friends.

And that can be a dangerous thing. So I did what I always do when I want to forget about the blunders of my past: distract myself with carbs and fantasy. I brought into the bath room with me some diversions in the form of the thickest Harry Potter book ever created and the second autobiography of television writer who now has her own show in the hope I could gleam some of her success by laying down and reading things instead of getting off my arse and being proactive about my future. I also plated up some avocado toast (surprisingly, even though my location has some of the highest fuel prices you’ll see on this side of the Equator the great avocado price hike hasn’t stuck my local supermarket so I am lapping it up while it lasts. Although, I’d pay almost anything for an avocado – I mean I wouldn’t sell a sibling, but if I had an iron-clad guarantee the flesh would be just right, I’d seriously consider trading in a cousin or something.) for good measure I even boiled the kettle and brewed a fantastic cup of tea, which was made even better by the cutesy mug that was included in my birthday care package.

So, with ample activities, a steady supply of food and the appropriate lighting, I was ready to unwind. The air was steamy, which multiple women’s magazines would tell you is the optimum atmosphere for melting the stress away. I was prepared to sink in the water and be reborn as a zen, chilled out goddess of calm like baptism-cum-lobotomy.

For the first five minutes everything went according to plan. The water was warm and smelled like a lolly shop. Somehow, the bath bomb made the water feel slipperier and my skin slimy, but in a sensuous way, not like an old fish. Unfortunately, there was one last snag in the line to serenity. In my bid to make this experience the most luxe of all, I used only the hottest water to fill the tub. What started as a warm embrace suddenly turned into a smothering crush. After about 20 minutes sweat began pouring down my neck to the point that it practically raised the water level. I could feel my brain cooking in my skull, like I was some kind of overdone human boiled egg.

I tumbled out of the tub threw on a robe (to hide my shame should I die, with the hope that I would look like a glamorous 40s film star overcome by tragedy instead of a half-cooked bogan who go into a bar fight in a dressing gown) and staggered to my room. It was a tumultuous journey, but I made it to the bedroom and passed out under the fan. My head was throbbing, the room was spinning and I could feel my heart beating out of my armpits. It wasn’t glamorous and it wasn’t soothing. I could feel my flesh cooking and my skin felt like it had a greasy film from not properly towelling off. I was supposed to come out of this experience feeling like a silken goddess, instead I felt like a barbecue chook. And there is nothing relaxing about feeling like a juicy lump of poultry, regardless of how well-seasoned it may be.

Over the weekend I asked a good friend of mine if I could rifle through her discarded clothing.

A dignified and reasonable woman, she declined this request with a certain air of grace, even though I wasn’t deterred by her assurances that her refuse consisted mostly of Supre clothes and misguided priorities. This was not an easy task considering I still wear Supre to work and have a particular passion for unscrupulously picking apart the cringe-worthy aspects of people’s pasts – I may be so self obsessed that I can’t remember whether a friend has siblings, but I’ll never forget those frosted tips in a pixelated photo from 2004.

There’s something that is so mesmerising about tipping out the unwanted contents of one’s life and sorting them into piles on the floor. Because while you may still be so poor that you’re willing to overlook a bolognaise stain on a mediocre work shirt, the real gold is analysing what people no long deem worthy of being in their possessions. Most of these things are stuffed into black garbage bags, with the thin plastic denoting the trashy categories their former owner has classed them into and hiding the shame of singlet tops claiming the wearer is the spouse of Ashton Kutcher. The great bottom drawer and top cupboard purges are usually done in secret and with a liberal dose of disgust. People declare such items as too shameful to attempt to give away or admit ownership of and pack them out of sight. The trip to the Vinnies bin is done with the stealth of an Australian kayaker sent to blow up Japanese submarines in the night (now that was one tense bloody documentary) – it’s a well-planned military operation which can have dire consequences if discovered. That’s what makes the thought of a bulging garbage bag so intoxicating – there’s nothing more revealing about a person than the stuff they want to quietly rid themselves of.

As someone who came from a big family of cheapskates and borderline hoarders (my sister still has a candy bracelet from when her and her husband got together about seven years ago), the plastic sack of unwanted – but not wholly soiled – goods was a treat for my sisters and I. Being a family of four children in this day and age, we looked like a tribe of 13 being brought up in the Potato Famine to smaller families, which wasn’t helped my mother’s walking stick and my father being exactly what you would envisage after hearing the words “Aussie”, “battler” and “leprechaun” together. As such, we were often privy to abandoned aspects of teenage lives by rummaging through their tatty remnants of their younger selves. People vaguely related to us with growing daughters presented the opportunity for clothing upgrades, and musty piles of overworn, no longer cool fabric excited us more than a live television broadcast of a Hanson concert.

We would tear at the plastic with the intensity of a pack of hyenas ripping at the flailing body of a wildebeest, squealing relentlessly as its internal organs are pulled from its skeleton and sliced open in the dirt. Hesitation be your downfall: all that stood between your ownership of a maroon turtleneck was that split second in which another set of hands managed to snatch it from your clutches. It was a strictly first in, average dressed. The only exception to the rule was a t-shirt with the words “yeah right” emblazoned on the fabric in glitter. Mum told my sister it should be mine because I was sarcastic and the shimmering sentiment suited me. However, looking back, I can’t help but wonder if I was bequeathed that top because it was the only thing in the bag that fit my plump body and no one wanted me trying other things on and stretching them out.

Needless to say, the prospect of having new(ish) things was exhilarating. But after a while our attention turned to the items that were so uncool even the Maguire girls wouldn’t touch them. We couldn’t help but wonder how such things came to be in the custody of our funky older idols in the first place. At some point it clicked: new things are great, but the humiliating relics of someone’s past are much more valuable. And these kind offerings were really sacks of shame, detailed inventories of indignity.

There’s a reason spies go through rubbish bins in cartoons: there are all kinds of truths in the items we try to dispose of. And an old shirt or knick knack can be just as telling about a person as several binned boxes of choc-backed Tiny Teddies. You could assume, for instance, that the bear-shaped biscuits indicate poor eating habits, a tendency towards child-like items and the sheer number of them would suggest shocking self-control. These three assumptions could lead to bigger conclusions about the person such as them being of ill health, daddy issues and an addictive personality. Of course, the multiple boxes could simply be in the trash because the person had been using them to store hand-woven bracelets and just experienced a popularity rush, selling all the handicrafts in a short space of time. The point being that you can’t really say for sure what that artefact means, but you can certainly have some fun trying to solve the riddle.

A bag of discarded items is the perfect fodder for judgemental over thinking, which just happens to be my favourite pastime. That collection of polo shirts that are exactly the same but different shades of pastel? You’re a boring  Saddle Club fan who would make a terrible wedding guest. Skate shoes with curse word laden personal jokes written in texta on the sides? You were a typical Year 9 floozy who exclusively wears Havianas with diamantes embedded on the straps and says things like “I don’t care, I’ll let my kids listen to Chris Brown – he shouldn’t be punished for getting angry and lashing out that one time”. And your three quarter demin jeans tell me that you’re not to be trusted and that some people should be sterilised for the good of humanity. Yes, the magic of pilfering the contents of one’s past life like a possum in a wheelie bin is interpreting the garbage left behind. The secrets you uncover could be dark, embarrassing or downright boring, but it’s up to the filthy succourer to draw the conclusion.

So perhaps it’s a good thing my glorious friend so swiftly shutdown any suggestion I ransack her possessions, because I can have sinister, friendship-ruining imagination at times – and this young woman hopes to start her own dessert café in Paris during her mid-life crisis and I will absolutely want to sponge off her.

Sometimes all you need to penetrate a mind is a little bit of magical inspiration.

Yes, I cringed a little at the word “penetrate” too, but hear me out. What I’m talking about here is forming non-superficial connections with someone, taking an acquaintanceship to the next level – deep, meaningful friendship. And when it comes to this whole “getting to know someone” business, mind penetration is really the only way to describe it.* It’s an invasive procedure, which is grossly intimate and can either be incredibly enjoyable or very uncomfortable. Either way, you end up pulling some kind of face you would be horrified to see reflected back at you. To penetrate, according to my computer’s dictionary is to:
1 go into or through (something), especially with force or effort.

2 gain access to (an organization, place, or system), especially when this is difficult to do.

The word implies some difficulty and an invasion of sorts. It doesn’t sound fun when you break it down in those terms, and for the most part it isn’t. Finding out about people is difficult and intrusive, so you need to have a game plan in place before you go in.

The other day somebody asked me whether I was good at asking people questions because of my line of work. They naïve person thought that I would be able to absolutely nail conversations and sneakily coaxing personal details out of people because it’s part of my job.

“Not really,” I told him.

“My go to opening question is ‘what’s you favourite colour’, so no.”

Incidentally, most people elect blue as their favourite hue. A distant second is red, with yellow and green trailing behind. I’ve only ever had one pink, but then I think people are lying to themselves. I think this is a fairly legitimate question to ask people – it breaks the ice and gives you something you can base completely legitimate analyses of the person’s emotional state, deep seeded motivations and general outlook on life (if you picked scarlet, you’re obviously some kind of psychopath who cannot be trusted and will never learn to love).

Regardless of my brilliant, lightly penetrative lines of questioning, it has come to my attention that I don’t often come off as someone who essentially has to speak to people with the goal to elicit fruitful conversation for a living. Actually, it’s down right surprising I get by if you take into account some of my conversational gems.

I know I speak of this often, but it’s hard to master small talk. It’s hard to “get to know” people, too. This task requires more probing questions such as inquisitions about the weather or statements about political affairs you’ve added un upwards inflection to. If you want to “get to know” someone, you need to squeeze the juice from the lime wedge, and while Oprah uses her teeth (I once saw the most fantastic episode of Oprah in which she and Gayle went glamping – they drove an RV and made cocktails outdoors and were all round fabulous. I really think there should be a remake of The Simple Life with Gayle and Oprah), I think you have to come at with a different approach when we’re talking metaphorical limes.

It’s funny how terribly suited I am for my job: my spelling is appalling, I can’t recount a tale in a logical, linear manner, I don’t like bothering people, and, as it turns out, I am absolute rubbish at finding out things about people’s lives. People have gone though painful breakups before I’ve even been aware they were in relationships. I couldn’t tell you what half of my friends do for a living. I didn’t even know a mate from college lived interstate until I was proofing a page with a photo of him on it.

Part of me wonders if it’s because I simply don’t care about other people’s lives unless it directly affects mine. It’s a matter of logic. Why waste precious time pondering the affairs of meaningless plebs when you could be dedicating your brainpower to a more enlightening pursuit, such as basking in the majesty of me? Subconsciously, my mind must discard every shred of detail about somebody’s life that doesn’t relate back to me because clearly anything devoid of essence of me is trash and not worth paying attention to. I wouldn’t put it past me. But if I did put it past me I probably wouldn’t even realise it, since I’m more oblivious to signs of bonfires and breakdowns of affections than a fence post. It is this winning combination of ignorance and self-obsession that renders me useless in a “hot goss sesh” and I’ve really had enough of it.

So, after turning over the aforementioned (and by aforementioned I mean the conversation I referenced almost 500 words ago. I told you can’t get from Point A to Point B of a story without making a few detours – hashtag to cut a long story short) exchange in my head while hosting a personal Harry Potter film festival all weekend, I’ve come up with a way to make sure I get to the nuts and bolts of people. I’ve devised a sneaky a strategy to keep up my sleeve should the dialogue run dry. It’s not so much a detailed plan as it is a list of uncomfortably probing questions based on Harry Potter phenomena, but I reckon it will do the trick. And, like an invisibility cloak belonging to a relative butchered by nose-less baldy, it’s time it was passed on to you.

Now, please keep in mind that Harry Potter played a big role in my life (I once went out in public with a paper mache snitch on my head and dressed up as the sword of Godric Gryffindor despite being deemed a fit person to enrol in a tertiary course). And, as I do with most things, I assume people have the same intense views towards the outstanding series as I do. Hence why I think this is an appropriate way to interact with someone.

So here are my fall back questions sure to form the basis of unwavering friendship:

What would a boggart turn into if you confronted it?

What you see if you looked into the Mirror of Erised?

If you came across a dementor, what would you think of?

What memory would you use to produce a fully-fledged patronus charm?

What form would your patronus take?

Who would you have to rescue if you were competing in the second task of the Twiwizard Tournament?

What would you attempt if you had one vial of liquid luck?

If came across a batch of polyjuice potion, who’s hair would you put in it?

So that’s it. That’s my “follow the spiders” for you, golden trio of readers (you know who you are).

Use it well.

*”I’m going to penetrate your mind” is also a quote from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Alan Rickman says it as Severus Snape, and prompted a significant chorus of giggles from my group of costumed friends in the movie theatre, no doubt thoroughly annoying all other serious audience members. I stand by our behaviour. 

Nah yeah: Discovering that the Indian wrap I saw on a poster was, indeed, a piece of naan bread as the wrap and that it was also, indeed, bloody delightful. The best thing I’ll put into my mouth all day, in fact.

Yeah nah: Being told I had to keep my work outfit on for an out-of-hours photo opportunity. 

Me: So do you think it’s professional of me to rock up to this photo in my gym gear when my gym gear consists of a shirt that reads: Merry Christmas ya filthy animal?

Everyone within earshot in the office: No!

If a festive movie quote shirt can’t be classified as corporate dress, then I don’t know if I can continue being a part of this conformist capitalist society.