The fridge and the fury

Can I place all the decisions in my life in a row, leading up to this very moment?  Perhaps I shouldn't have told the university recruiter that computer science "sounds a bit like hard work. What's theology?"  Maybe I could have played rugby for Wales if I wasn't so rubbish at rugby.  Perhaps if I'd had fewer tequilas before meeting Snow White I'd still be allowed in Disneyland.

I found myself pondering all this as I cleaned our fridge, in preparation for our fast-approaching move to DC.  There's something about scraping six-month-old honey dijon dressing off a plastic shelf that invites introspection.

The question wasn't whether the fridge needed cleaning, or whether I was the person to do it.  I certainly wasn't going to suggest that my highly-skilled and paid wife should.  ("Doesn't the fridge clean itself," she would ask, "like the dirty washing I leave in the corner of the bedroom?"  Before adding "why have a dog and bark yourself?" to make sure I understood.)

There was only one thing to do: go to see Mad Max: Fury Road.

Going to the cinema alone is a singular pleasure.  You don't have to worry about what the friends you're with think about the film, or whether they might walk out mid-way through (Spiderman 2).  The only downside is wondering what's up with the weirdos sharing the cinema with you on a workday afternoon.  Don't these people have jobs to go to?

Mad Max: Fury Road features Max Rockatansky who, as you may know, is a lone wanderer of post-apocalyptic Australia; portraying him catapulted Mel Gibson to stardom.  This time he's played by British actor Tom Hardy, but he remains the haunted, broken man whose only instinct is survival in a world he can neither understand nor overcome.  I can relate to him.

As you may also know, this installment of Max's saga sees him racing from death with a group of beautiful concubines, alternately fighting and assisting Imperator Furiosa (played by Charlize Theron) as they fling themselves across a wasteland towards an uncertain destiny.  One of the criticisms is that Max is a bit-player in his own uber-feminist movie, forced to follow a beautiful, volatile, and lethally capable woman to wherever her destiny might lead.  It's true - it was like watching my life unfold on screen.

Happily the film was jaw-droppingly amazing but, disappointingly, outside the cinema it was a drizzly Vancouver day rather than the parched outback where all I needed was a vehicle and a gun to make my own law.  Oh well, maybe that'll be Hannah's next placement after DC.  I consoled myself knowing that, should the apocalypse arrive, no one will have a cleaner fridge to hide in than me.

Welcome to my life Max.