Jock's Jocks

'Is your best friend a spy?'
'Found a gun in your boyfriends' pants?'
'10 top-secret sex tips from the hunkiest spies.'

Did they just sound like those titles that you might find on the cover of an edition of Cosmo?
It recently dawned on me that we rarely see our friends, housemates or even parents at work, and so I understandably jumped to the conclusion that they might all be spies.

Imagine your living with an accountant, who comes home every night complaining of how the water cooler ran out, while they refer to their loopy co-workers as ‘loop holes.’ They might even remark how they couldn’t wait to come home and ‘debit’ some love from their ‘partner.’ However this white shirt, bad tie wearing number-eater might in fact be putting up a rather tax-offset front. (Like all relationships, people need to contribute equally so the love runs strong, so they need to ‘balance their love-ledgers.’)

The water cooler may in fact have run out, but that might instead mean that they ran out of ammunition in their secret machine-gun. Those ‘loopy’ co-workers could in fact be hard-ass, seething spies who have fallen into enemy hands a few times too many. I’m not sure what those enemy hands may have done, but it certainly didn’t make them love life more.

Instead of crunching numbers, our accountant could in fact be crunching hard middle-eastern desert sand under their boots, dropping half smoked Cuban cigars that sear into the sand as if they were prawn crackers in black bean sauce. Over dinner one night, I may complain about the traffic or how the milk might have gone slightly off, while he is sitting next to me comparing my wimpy peak-hour traffic story to the crowded streets of an anarchic African nation he was driving through two days prior.

Maybe my parents are spies, and all those times they came home late from work might have been because their flights from Beirut were delayed. While they were photographing blueprints for weapons guidance systems, I was probably growing impatient as the Bold and Beautiful was a couple of minutes late. Later that night, I would complain to them how I got held back at school for being a bit too loud in class, all the while they were getting their finger-nails pulled out by a sweaty, unshaven bloke wearing a stained singlet in a dungeon somewhere far away.

My next question is, how come I’ve been left out of all this? I thought I would make a great spy, as I can act, make wisecracks and appear clueless. Who would suspect a primary school teacher might in fact be blowing up ammunition dumps and flipping through laser beams in a perfectly timed break dance? I like dressing up, especially sometimes in the bedroom, but heck it’s all practice isn’t it? I make a pretty good pretend doctor, so I think I may as well put that on my spy CV.

After realising that you're all spies I now feel alone and excluded from you crime fighters, and it’s circumstances like this that turn people like me into super-villains who want to take over the world by controlling the weather or shrinking people. So if anyone is looking for any work and wouldn’t mind being sneering henchmen wearing matching orange suits and helmets, then drop me a line. Austin Powers 4? More like Austin Cowers 4.

Your brother was killed ten years ago by a heartless sword master called Blackheart. Upon his last breath you swore revenge on his death, and henceforth dedicated your life to perfecting the deadly art of fencing. You trained day and night, slurping down medieval protein shakes and ruining ancient tracksuits until you and the sword became one revenge-driven killing machine.

Finally after ten years of training and searching, you find Blackheart, who is no less heartless even after having started a family and already going through a mid-life crisis. On that historic day, you duel into the night and after hours of toil, you finally have him on his knees, where you utter those oft-practiced words “My name is Jock Hutton, you killed my brother, now you must die.” He sneers, and in one swift stroke you drive your rapier home, where he then exhales his last breath and crumples to the ground like a sack of turnips. Triumphant you hold your sword aloft and breathe a sigh of relief.

However something suddenly dawns on you. “What the hell do I do now?” you ask yourself. You didn’t plan for this post-killing moment; not thinking past the bit when Blackheart dies, and realize you’re barely in your thirties and have no qualifications or trade. You’ve got nothing to fall back on, and so over the next 6 months you lead a directionless life, develop depression and anxiety due to recurring thoughts of worthlessness and end it all by swallowing a packet of those yellow toilet blocks.

The revenge business is a fickle sort of game, as once someone has had their revenge, they must then make the transition to the post-revenge period of lives, and most of us are thoroughly unprepared for it. The post-revenge transitional period is one that has plagued us since their dawn of man, but one that has never been talked about because men in general are unable to open up to anyone about their feelings and insecurities. Instead they grunt into their skein of ale, or kill a boar.

The lack of plan is an issue that happens mainly with men successfully gaining revenge over a close family-member or even a friends’ death.

What defines revenge, you may not ask? I don’t really feel that any non-murder-avenging type of revenge should be called revenge, as it just doesn’t sound revenge-ey enough. Fancy someone stealing your prized gumboots, inspiring you to then go and dedicate the next ten years of your life training to avenge the theft of those beloved red wellies. Upon killing the gumboot thief, I wouldn’t think, “may my red gumboots and I now grow old together after this triumph.” Instead I’d probably think, “what the hell have I just done, spending years in the revenge business over some rubbery footwear that is by now hideously out-dated?

It is from this realization that I thought the responsible thing to do would be to provide some post revenge planning education to those people who are either currently in revenge or are seriously thinking about it.

As I have discussed, the problem is that of what to do once revenge has been carried out. Triumph will soon turn to heartbreak if you don’t plan carefully. Your dead relative or friend will turn over in their hastily dug grave if you fail so soon in life after your triumph.

It is important to think about how much of your time you will dedicate to revenge. If you were particularly close to that dead person, then you will probably spend a lot of time in training. Step back for a second though, and contemplate a few things. So many of us are dedicated to some goal that we lack balance in our lives. Instead of doing sword-fighting all day, take some time to maybe start a certificate in landscape gardening at night-school, or try reading a book about decorating eggs and baskets. All that machismo would be enough to make Hercules look like he was about to decorate his sword, not stab someone with it. So get a balance, yin and yang, feminine and masculine, junk food and fruit, and insert uninspiring analogy here.

Why not open a small pub? It would be perfect, as you could be trainee during the day, and innkeeper by night. Once Blacktwig is dead, all you need to do then is go back to your inn and pour a beers for thirsty soothsayers, break up a fight between elves and dwarves, and feed some hay to a few horses; a seamless revenge/post-revenge transition.

For those who are not only seeking revenge, but are also fugitives on the run from the hated city inquisition, then why not masquerade for a while as a hairdresser. No one would suspect that the well-manicured man with a pencil thin moustache who specializes in layering and medieval mullets is also a master swordfighter who is just biding his time. The guards aren’t going to search ye olde salon and upon the sight of aforementioned hairdresser immediately come to the conclusion that he could kill them all with a playful laugh and a few casual slices of his rapier.

So if you are thinking about entering the revenge business, or are already some way into your sword training and “you killed my father...” line-practicing, then make some time in that deadly schedule to think about your future. I haven’t had anyone come up to me seeking advice before, as I still have all family members intact. However I will leave you with this line,

“Yon person who forgets thy future, willeth finde yourselth un-skilled and directionless thou lumpish, onion-eyed, flax-wench.” That roughly translates to “Have a post-revenge plan you nitwit.”