Hot or Not: Crime

Disclaimer: The term criminologists in this article have been used to denote someone who is studying rates, it may not be their actual title.

Criminologists have claimed a callous case, over the course of summer, as our cognition cooks and stews in our craniums, violent crime increases in Australia. Crimes would cruise 2.4% for every one degree counted increase.

‘The relationship between things like assaults increase [as] the temperature increases’ - Dr. Dodd (Thomas Moore Law School)

Considering my relish for sippin’ spirits, my psyche couldn’t take some more stewin’. Perhaps dehydration was some sorta sinister sinner in this situation, forcing strangers and associates to pulverise each other.

It seemed momentously important I circumvented this mind melting at all costs, my wallets moaning be damned. I didn’t know exactly what caused this spike but staying hydrated seemed a good place to start.

Dehydration seemed the devil on our shoulders, demanding we dance to a derangly angry tune. Despite the common symptoms, it seemed it could delve us towards a dangerously irritable mood.

‘Neurological effects of dehydration can cause irritability’ – Dr Podesta

Whether this led to an increased rate of violence seemed more theoretical at the moment, but it seemed a sensible start to stay hydrated to avoid the summer shit kicking. Decrease of irritability afterall could potentially make me less, irritable, and less irritability could mean… less irritability.

I was slappin’ the sidewalk towards the liquor store, deciding to stock up on the most sensible of fluids to suck down, vapes.

It was ‘water’ afterall, and could shield me from those sinister summer rays turning everyone’s synapses to some sorta pre-historic kill switch. Yet my method for hydration began to seem questionable, as I began to well, question it. When I arrived it hit me, they had run out of lemonade flavoured vapes.

Was it really a vape full of fluids, if said fluid flavour didn’t occur in the ‘wilds’ of suburbia?

Lemonade I could trust, but this talk of banana flavour, it was foul and freakish and not in the fun ways, even I knew that banana wasn’t a ‘fluid’, begging the question, was it just a ‘solid’ mass of banana corkscrewed into the vape, or some strange concoction of chemicals, that resembled water as much as zyklon b imitated helium in party balloons? I took the safe option and settled for a frozen berry flavour I left and took a hit… refreshing.

Yet, with my hydration situation now in hand, what else could be causing this horrendous spike in violence?

Dr Dodd discussed the devious idea that seemed so dastardly it could be true. Individuals would conduct themselves real differently during summer, schools letting a flood of pre-pubescent, or more disastrously pubescent students to daringly roam the roads for school holidays. People delightfully work free with as much time on their hands as they’d hardened knuckles. With drink drowning out the dreadful idea of returning to some drone position in education or other dull duties.

Summer was a respectable and convenient time to crack some craniums with your knuckles.

It had been about the time I had a terrible throning in my head, I decided it was time for a tactical reassement of my water intake, and over the course of maybe an hour drank 600ml. I couldn’t keep this up for long it seemed, I was getting bad water withdrawal. No doubt big water was laughing at me the fiend. My friend had assured me they knew an oasis were my dehydrating troubles would be solved, all I would have to do was survive one final day on the vapes.

I could feel a headache coming on and decided it was time for a sensible solution, Panadol. I strolled down to my local super market and grabbed a box, as I was leaving I noticed a security guard and waltzed up to him, my waterless brain all too eager and overly confident for its own good. “DO you know why these machines only accept, card?’

‘Machines that accept money are over there’

‘No, no, do you know why they only accept card?’

‘No, you would have to ask the staff, I am only security’

‘I think it’s to keep careless kids like myself down’.

I left promptly after and harassed a liquor store owner, explaining my ‘water bottle’ (vape) was broken and that I needed an alternative source of hydration. I walked out with about a six pack. Got home and vaped down a Panadol, deciding I was still thirsty after my vape, I also added a drop of vape to some pure cordial and gulped it down. Berry flavours were not meant to meet under such circumstances. I was getting desperate though, I had begun to have troubles breathing earlier and didn’t know if I could hold this course for too much longer. I needed a saviour; I needed an oasis.

Spirits and soaring heats, yet something sinister seemed to be conspiring in my oasis. It was a celebratory location of sorts, which tied me to a terrible to a fate I hadn’t considered. A final hypothesis on why violence increases in this country during summer. Festivities. Hypothetically as more and more people indulged in spendings and such, it could put more financial strain on them and by extension, may make them more prone or motivated to commit crime.

It was sunny when my friend showed up, the sorta sunny that stewed people’s synapses and left them in a summer stupor. I was wearing plastic bags on my hands I had fashioned into gloves.

“Are you okay’

“Yes, I have been replacing my water with vapes’

‘That doesn’t sound healthy’

‘That’s what big water, wants you to think’

The slimy bastard tried to steal those plastic bags straight off my hands, I scoffed and screamed, said it straight that “it’s preserving my fluids”. I questioned if he wanted me to decay like a piece of meat. Yet I didn’t have a choice, he would refuse me passage to ‘oasis’ if I didn’t remove my gloves’

He talked about this ‘oasis’ and I realised something this same oasis was the same place we’d stirred some people sour when I showed up wearing what they thought was a butt plug on my cranium. something which angered me as they proceeded to remove it, if it was what they thought, didn’t they have the decency to LEAVE another man’s sex toys alone? Alas it was just a spiked German WW1 helmet which I had worn so people knew I meant business when I requested to see their ‘papers’.

Going to such a refined and loveable place seemed a celebration of sort, something which should have frightened me, was my friend leading me to some fiendish death trap, full of people flapping money, only for their fortunes to turn foul and them freakish on the other patrons of this reputable place.

This same den was where Brendon Searle had started his night before ending it by shooting at two police officers.

It didn’t matter, I was too far gone into my dehydration to stop now, after all, I didn’t think my friend would lie to a dehydrated man.

We staggered towards the oasis, him sippin’ a cigar and me smoking some spirits, we were greeted by loud noise, a horrible sewage smell seeping through what seemed the cement or gutters outside and walked into the place. They asked for my I.D., I told them I had my papers and pulled out my cigarette rolling papers. Although they weren’t accepted after some noise and the production of a drivers license we had two pints and were sent off to the smoking area. We’d done it. Found oasis, no fights seemed to break out, we were safe in the jaws of this place.

Truly there seems many theories on what exactly causes people to act violently in summer. It seemed all that could be gleamed at this point in time was simple. Remembering that drinking didn’t always have to be beer if you couldn’t stand it anymore, your money won’t magically recouped after each shot and that your cranium is not a cook pot, no brain likes being broiled.