The trusting country.

 A few weeks ago I went to a very alternative health food café (which was definitely a first for me!!!) which sported hand written-signs and was dairy-free, gluten-free, soy-free and almost nut-free, save for the two kooks dancing around the kitchen in gumboots. As I watched the cook prepare my meal, I saw he had a pretty impressive plumber’s crack poking out of his footy shorts and it struck me how much trust we put in strangers' hands. My trust on this occasion was assuming the cook hadn’t given the aforementioned orifice a quick scratch before he picked up my vegie patty or that he had not dropped a dreadlock or string of prayer beads in the salad dressing...

 We show even greater trust every time we drive our car and assume the people coming at us in the other direction at 100km/h are competent, not drunk or contemplating suicide by head-on collision.

 We do it when we get on a plane, trusting that the engineers weren’t pissed off when they refuelled the aircraft. We do it when we open a can, assuming the factory workers didn’t pee in the pea soup and we do it when we let our kiddies run off to day care with people we’ve never even met before.

 Trust is the basis of modern society because without it we wouldn't consume anything we didn't grow and prepare ourselves, live in any shelter we didn't build and wired and plumbed; swallow any medicine we didn't source and ground to paste in front of our eyes. Can you imagine going to the dentist without trust? The gynaecologist? The races?

 Suspicion and paranoia are with us to a certain degree in every person, but if they were widespread or complete, we couldn't function outside of tiny villages or tribes; we'd all starve and have to walk everywhere. Luckily for us, Australia is the Trusting Country.

 It’s one of the things I've heard foreigners comment on when they visit here - how trusting we are and, as a result, how trustworthy we are as a nation. Whether you agree with that blanket statement or not, it's a fact that every day of your life you put enormous trust and faith in complete strangers - yet so many of us are mistrusting of the people who are closest to us.

 Our parents, our lovers, neighbours and co-workers all come under particular suspicion, yet we're happy to shovel a take-away meal into our mouth prepared by someone we've never met and will probably never know. More bizarrely are those of us who'll blindly snort, shoot or swallow illegal drugs knocked up in some grubby crim's bathtub, then blue with the missus or a mate that they "can't be trusted!" because of a text message or missed appointment.

 Why do so many of us have trouble giving our intimates the benefit of the doubt when we extend it to strangers? This is pretty much the core of jealousy - an inability to trust that the people closest to you have your best interests at heart. When you extend that sort of obsessive suspicion beyond intimates, it becomes paranoia and anxiety and we shuffle the sufferers off to the doctor.

 Day to day, however, it's up to us to confront our trust issues and, more often than not, they start with the question - "can I trust myself?"

Bringing sexy back upstairs.

 If you've lived in a modern apartment building, you probably hear a little more than you'd like from your neighbours thanks to the 'miracle' lightweight materials used to construct developments. Sound travels and it's always the special noises like the occupant of 15C's toilet flushing five times a night or their alarm going off at 4am that you get to enjoy over and over and over again.
 If you're really fortunate, however, you live in a flat with just the right acoustics to pipe in the transmissions from the love machine, who lives above, so when they get lucky at midnight, so do you! Then you get to spend the next wide-eyed, half hour praying Casanova hasn't popped Viagra.   In my time, I've lived in some truly crap apartments on the Gold Coast (QLD - Australia), with some truly wonderful acoustics - the only benefit of which has been to make me a faux expert on the nocturnal emissions of my fellow residents. See if you can recognise any of these people...

Thumpers:
These two might as well be hammering nails above you. At least they have rhythm.

Squeakers:
Who illustrate nightly why you should not buy a cheap bed.

Rollers:
You really only get to appreciate this phenomenon if the people upstairs have floorboards. After a bit of discrete rumpy pumpy, something falls on the ground that sounds like a marble rolling across the floor. I reckon I've spent a solid three days of my life trying to work out what the hell it is?

Ron Jeremy:
Is there a creepier and/or funnier experience than hearing another couple's bedroom talk, especially if the guy thinks he's a porn star and his missus, a phone sex operator? Cries of "that's it tiger" and "you sweet, sick thing" pale next to the true champion of the genre who quotes the Hedgehog at the top of his voice, screaming "it's your dick, baby!"

Spiderman:
There's a distinctly different sound when someone is pounding away against the floor or against the wall and Spidey, well, he likes to get vertical.

The iPoders:
Who need to have THAT song on for the magic to happen. Hopefully it's not by Something For Kate.

The Mandelas:
Screaming, sobbing, moaning and arguing. You're not sure what's going on with this couple: is he killing her or teaching her the Kama Sutra?

Screamers:
Really annoy me.

Gigglers:
Ain't they cute?

Jerry Springers:
This is more of a visual experience. After you've spotted the very fat woman with the cabanossi-skinny boyfriend in the hallway, you get to imagine the intimate mechanics when they start to get it done next door.

Greg Birds/Wayne Careys:
I hate these guys. It always starts with breaking glass and ends with you having to give a statement to the cops in your undies.

Old MacDonalds:
All I'm saying is if there's bleating or barking going on in 15D you may wanna call the RSPCA. Or maybe Colour Climax Films. Thanks for hearing me out on this.

The powerpoints:
Because they have one in every room.

The onanists:
Same loop of video over and over again on their laptop or the friendly buzz of a certain appliance. Dead giveaway when the “rabbit” falls off the bed and razzes against the floorboards for 10 seconds.

The thespians:
I've never heard this breed in action but I did see my neighbours unloading fancy dress costumes out of their car one afternoon - naughty school girl for her, matador for him. When I raised a suggestive eyebrow at the lady of the house she merely smiled and said "it's his birthday."

The Todd McKenneys:
Also known as The Malcom Frasers. You may not see them in action but you'll find their pants in the hallway. Hopefully unsoiled.

The long-term married:
Best neighbours of all. Silent as a tomb, except for when the baby is crying.

Ps: If you're not familiar with some of the names of people on here, Google them.