I didn’t have anything to blog about this week, which is why I started asking my boyfriend absurd questions, such as: If you were a fugitive, where would you hide out? and If you had to kill me, how would you do it? Normally, I wouldn’t get far with questions like that, but we had just watched Gone Girl the night before and then dissected its many plot holes over lunch. Hypothetical murder was top of mind for both of us.
Be that as it may, I didn’t expect Johann to take the questions seriously. What man would? I mean, I’ve heard of some poor soul stepping into a trap about the size of a woman’s butt in relation to a pair of jeans, but I’ve never met a guy who made the mistake of chitchatting about how he’d off his girlfriend to his girlfriend, even if – no especially if – it was his girlfriend who posed the question in the first place. But, every now and then, Johann surprises me, by which I mean that he played along with my little game… and not very well, I might add.
“I don’t know how I’d kill you,” Johann shrugged as he took a sip of wine. “I’d probably do something to your running shoes.”
I twisted in my café seating to get a better look at his face. He was wearing sunglasses, so it was hard to tell if he was being serious.
“Like do what?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Put something on them to make you fall.”
For a man who dabbles in art, I was disappointed by his lack of creativity. Not only that, but I expected a little more in the way of plausibility. Sure, death by exercise is possible, if a person is in the habit of, say, running through the Alps at dusk. But I’m not that person. I spend most of my workout on a treadmill. Even here in Venice, where I run outdoors, the worst that would happen is that I’d slip into a canal. I’m not a strong swimmer, but I doubt that would kill me.
In playing this game, Johann had unwittingly made two terrible mistakes: he entertained the idea of killing me; and he imagined a scenario that had absolutely no chance of working. You know what they say, Hell hath no fury like a woman tripped.
“Put something on my shoes,” I snarked. “Like I’m not used to falling all the damn time anyway.”
Johann sighed. “OK,” he said. “How would you kill m–?”
“I WOULDN’T KILL YOU!” I screamed, my words startling a pair of pigeons picking at a bag of garbage. “THAT’S THE CORRECT ANSWER! THAT YOU WOULDN’T KILL ME.”
For a second, Johann looked confused. So innocent is he that it never occurred to him that in a hypothetical world of his own design, he could refuse to murder me.
“I can’t believe you actually answered the question!” I screeched. “And not only that, it’s a bad answer. A slip and fall at the 24/7 Fitness? The question was about hatching a murder, not setting up a comedy sketch.”
Johann rolled his eyes. “OK, OK,” he said. “But how would you kill me?”
“I wouldn’t kill you!” I yelled. “I’d just leave.”
“But if you had to,” he pressed.
“I don’t have to,” I argued. “Because I have a suitcase.”
“But if you did,” he insisted.
I sighed. “Well how good are the Finnish police?” I asked.
“Not that good,” he admitted.
“I’m not surprised,” I said. “I doubt they get much practice.” I paused to sip my wine. “Anyway,” I continued. “In that case, I’d make it look like an accident.”
“An accident?” Johann asked. “Like what? You’d hit me over the head with my whiskey tray?”
I did a double take. First of all, Johann and I both know that we use the solid marble whiskey tray I bought him as a birthday gift exclusively for playing Yahtzee. To refer to it any other way is just being dishonest. Second, hitting someone over the head with a 20-pound Yahtzee arena would hardly look like an accident.
“Do you know what an accident is?” I asked. “First the sneakers, and now this. I’m beginning to think you don’t understand the exercise.”
“Well you could put it up somewhere high and then have it fall on my head,” he suggested.
“Listen to yourself,” I said. “You think I know how to jerry-rig a Yahtzee court to crack your skull? Have we met?”
“Well you tell me,” he said. “How would you fake an accident?”
I scoffed. Like this was hard to imagine. Once a week, Johann does something that should kill him, like ride a ten-speed Italian racing bike through a blizzard or sit inside a 120-degree room and then immediately throw his naked body onto a block of ice. On the day that we moved out of our apartment, he insisted on carrying a 200-pound coffee table backwards down five flights of curved stone steps. So certain was I that the whole thing would end with him getting crushed on a spiral staircase by a piece of handmade furniture that I went into the bathroom and counted to 200 before coming out. If that’s how it ended, I didn’t want to hear the crash.
“I’d do it like a fall,” I said. “Probably have you slip on a hike. Or maybe I’d just agree to help could carry the coffee table and then, well… not carry the coffee table.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
I held an imaginary piece of furniture in my hands, then released my grasp. “I’d let go,” I said.
He stared at me. “I don’t like this game.”
“Well I didn’t think you were going to play, but here we are!”
At first glance, I could see how this conversation would be concerning to most couples. The admission, however casual, that you might kill each other with a coffee table does not sit well. But I’m not that worried about it. On the contrary, I feel like our conversation only proves that Johann isn’t capable of such things. After all, I gave him the chance to imagine the worst and all he could come up with is some banana peel plan that would possibly get me kicked out of my gym. What can I say, Johann just doesn’t have it in him.
But just in case I’m wrong about that, rest assured that I’m one step ahead. May I remind you that I warmed him up by asking where he’d hide if he committed a crime – a question that he also answered with his trademark honesty and a stunning lack of self-awareness. If I do turn up dead in some tragic, borderline comical, slip and fall, this is where you can find Johann: In Asia. In a remote forest. Making furniture and drinking cocktails.
Once again, I’m not sure he understood the question, as he seems to have confused living on the lam with going into retirement. Either way, it’s good news for me. A blonde man, ordering cocktails in heavily accented English and making a racket in the woods of Thailand should be easy to find. If he’s building a coffee table when you find him, watch your back.
JoJo and I have actually played this “game”. We both agreed that if we got angry enough to kill each other, it would be violent. Then we would take our chances with a “temporary insanity” or “crime of passion” plea. We’re not very creative, either.
in time, I hope we get better at this “game.” please send JoJo my regards. She continues to impress me. :)
The Mr totally fell for this when I just asked him. He told me he’d make it look like an opioid overdose. Then he said, “how would you do it?” and I said, “I wouldn’t kill you.”
“YOU HAVE TO IN THIS SITUATION.” And he stormed out.
omg. classic. I have to admit, opioid overdose is, like, kind of a good idea????? in so much as hypothetical murder is a good idea in the first place. it’s probably good that you have on record here. JUST IN CASE. lol.
Stay safe! And thanks for making me laugh so hard I cry in the airport. That’s one way to get a whole seating area to yourself…
oh any time… any time! honestly, if I’m telling a story about my own murder, I’m glad people are laughing. let that be my dying wish. :) thanks for reading & safe travels!
This had my boyfriend and I laughing from start to finish ^_^ And as to murder plans, wasn’t there an episode of Poirot about murdering someone by injecting them with an empty syringe?