Samey in the sense of same old Weet-Bix breakfast, same old car with the same scratch on the left passenger side door, same old face in the mirror, same old sky, same old trees.
Even coffee tastes the same.
It’s then you realise there is something missing and what you need is a bit of madness in your life — like a puppy.
And if things are very samey indeed and you’re desperate for some stark raving chaos in your life what you need is a Jack Russell puppy.
If you’re an ordered, neat and tidy sort of person who likes your home to look like a dental surgery and who arranges their sock drawer according to the colour spectrum — then very probably a Jack Russell is not your type of dog.
If you enjoy books like The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and therapy courses like Clutter Healing then I would suggest you are more of a mature basset hound sort of person or even a potential Chinese AI robo-dog owner.
There is absolutely no point in trying to live an orderly life of military tidiness if you live with a Jack Russell.
You will become very sad and angry very quickly.
Luckily, I don’t mind a bit of chaos.
I am always inspired by Einstein’s reply to his college dean who complained about the untidiness of his office.
“If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then is an empty desk a sign?” the man who changed the world asked.
It’s always nice to have a genius on your side when it comes to justifying Jack Russell ownership.
Dezzy arrived on a plane from Sydney in a crate with chew marks on the door and a comfort pad shredded to brown fluff.
It was a nice sunny day but it wouldn’t surprise me if the pilot had to fight bouts of unexplained turbulence.
So far, Dezzy’s bonkers trail includes carpet chewing; table leg chewing; telephone landline chewing; trouser leg ripping; newspaper shredding; 3am screaming; bee chasing; toe biting; pot-plant tipping; and finding a gap under the deck to squirm through and bury a chicken foot.
That’s three days’ worth.
There’s more, but they’re erased from conscious memory.
Dezzy is, of course, short for Desmond which any Beatles fan worth their piece of sunshine knows comes from McCartney’s Ob-La-Di-Ob-La-Da, which talks about “Desmond has a barrow in the market place” and ends with “life goes on brah – la la la how life goes on”.
Or something like that.
Lennon hated the song, it took them several days to record, and for the first time they used session musicians on congas and saxophone.
They then rejected the recording.
It’s all a bit messy really.
Which perfectly suits life with Dezzy the Jack.
We’ve just repainted the loungeroom and are now putting everything back in place, but not in the same place.
Things are going to be different.
Where once life was a straight-arm reach for geometrical order and muscular power over the universe like an Elon Musk salute, it is now much nearer the truth.
It’s now chaotic and fast, then slow and languid, then whining and bite-marked.
It’s messy and unpredictable and a little bit daft.
That’s Jack Russell-speak for normal.
John Lewis is a former journalist at The News.
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