Next week, I’m heading to Finland. I must say that I am excited, but not for the reasons you may expect. You see, I’ve become pretty obsessed with all the seemingly endless supply of European detective shows being dumped on Netflix. I’ve written about this already HERE, but this entry is focused on a pattern that has emerged after watching too many of these shows.

Consider this a handy list of the common factors in most of these programs. This probably won’t mean anything to anyone except me, but you might find it useful. Or, you could take these points, put them into a spreadsheet and a drinking game. Whenever one of these appears in a show, you gotta drink. If you are planning on doing this, please be responsible and don’t binge watch all at once. That won’t be good for anyone.

Yes, I’ve gone through shows like River, The Bridge, Luther and Marcella. Although some of the points below show up in those shows, I’m mainly referring to Broadchurch, Shetland, Hinterland, Happy Valley, The Break, Wallander and Trapped, among others.

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After living in my current residence for almost two years, I'd finally had it. When I moved in here, the place was left in a mess. Don't get me wrong, I love living here, but even after all this time, I still find dirt hidden away in cracks and crevices. It makes me wonder how some people live.

My place is two floors and has a wooden staircase upstairs. The corners of all the stairs have been chipped away and the centre of the steps are extremely worn. It's like someone took a file and tried to crudely sand away the step corners at irregular angles. There's a crack in the tub, like not enough that it leaks, but enough THAT IT IS CRACKED. I mean, how do you crack a tub? The sink also has a loonie-sized chip in it. You'd have to literally drop a rock in the sink to chip it like this. You don't even want to know what a plumber pulled out of the drain in the tub. I finally got the dryer professionally cleaned because the insides were so full of some type of unidentifiable fur objects or UFOs for short.

I can go on, but I'll stop there. You get the idea. For a long time, I had wondered about who this person was that lived here before me.

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Except for the first two paragraphs, none of this actually happened. But perhaps maybe in another multiverse, it all happened exactly like this.

A few weeks ago, I was waiting in the check out line at the grocery store. Ahead of me was an old couple buying a lot of things. Too many things, really. She was definitely in charge, pointing and instructing him on how to bag their food. She paid while he bagged. It seemed to be working for them. They did take a little while to get through, but it was almost like this was some kind of dance that they had performed, in some capacity or another, their entire lives together.

Unpacking my groceries at home a short time later, I came across a bag of three fruits that were definitely not mine. I knew they were definitely not mine because I had no idea what they were. I didn't event know if they were fruits or vegetables. For identification purposes, I included a photograph here. As you can see, they resemble tomatoes, but are not. The only clue I had was a sticker that read 'kosher'. What I put together was this: during the confusion at the checkout line and dancing elderly couple, these fruits (or vegetables) must have gotten mixed up with my groceries. That poor old guy left behind these unidentifiable fruit object (or UFO for short) and in my fury of getting the line moving again, I unknowingly tossed them into one of my bags.

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Last week, I was talking with my mom on the phone in my apartment when the fire alarm went off. I told her to wait for a minute or two to see if it stopped or they made some type of announcement about this being a test. The alarm didn't stop and there was no announcement. Told her I'd call her back, put my shoes and coat on and headed out into the cold.

My building is actually two buildings that are connected. I exited through the stairwell into a parking area between the buildings. Immediately across from this was the gym on the first floor. The gym has large windows and there were people running on treadmills and using the elliptical machines. Other people were lifting free weights. They lifted their weights and continued their work-outs as though no alarm was going off. Sure, most of them had earphones in, but if you can't hear the alarm, you might be curious about the growing number of people congregating between the buildings.

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