Robert De Niro's Mole

Like many of you, we give our four dogs lots of different names. Whatever comes out of our mouths at the time is what we call them, really. That’s how the name of my blog came about. I was calling out to my fox terrier,

“Oi, Punk! Punky… Poinky… Punky Brewster… Punky Punker… Pinky Punker… Pinky Poinker!…. Come here and get your disgusting bone, you eejit dog!”

That is honestly how I came up with the silly name for my blog.

Our German Shepherd sometimes gets called Robert, mainly because he so closely resembles Robert De Niro.

It’s mainly the mole on his muzzle. Our Germy Shepherd has a mole in the exact same place as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver (or Jack Byrnes in Meet the Fokkers… depending on your level of intellect).

Mind you, I don’t believe Taxi Driver is more intellectually elevated than Meet the Fokkers.
Taxi Driver was a pretty boring movie and I didn’t even get one bloody laugh out of it, whereas, “Meet the Fokkers” was HILARIOUS.

Especially the part when the cat flushed the dog down the loo. I know there was no dramatic catharsis or complicated, ironic and studied, Freytag's pyramid involved… but there was the toilet humour.

Frankly, I think ‘Taxi Driver’ was highly overrated. Who cares about taxi drivers, anyway?

Only Uber drivers, I suppose.

Recently, my eighty-one year old, Dad picked us up when Scotto and I were going out for our anniversary lunch. Dad’s anniversary present to us was a lift to the winery and back. When he turned up he had an Uber sign on the dashboard which gave us all a laugh.


It wasn’t so funny later on when my elderly Mum drove up to the local IGA and the local louts kept trying to flag her down for a ride because Dad had forgotten to remove the sign. That, my friends, is a completely true story. Poor Mum.

We went over to visit Mum and Dad last night as it was Father’s Day and all. Dad had been on his death bed all week with the flu.

“I need to tell you all my passwords,” Dad croaked as he sat in his velvety dressing gown scoffing pizza. “In case I die. I think it might be happening soon.”

“Dad, you’re as healthy as a draught horse. You just had the bloody flu!” I scoffed.

“No, my dear, I should show you where all my official papers are in case something happens,” he rasped, whilst slurping up a generous bowl of apple crumble and cream.

“You’ll be outliving me!” I shrilled. “Shut up and stop talking about death!”

My parents love to talk about death. They look up the obituaries every weekend on Google to see who they’ve outlasted. Before I moved down here, whenever I talked to them on the phone, thirty seconds into the conversation, right after the “how are the kids?”, Mum would casually ask, “So… who’s died in Townsville, lately?”

Every time I take Mum to lunch she invariably starts discussing her will and what she wants done with her deceased fudging estate.

As I sit, choking down my toasted cheese sandwich, she relates explicit instructions on how she wants the money divided up between the grand kids.

The thing is, with my diabolical drinking habits and avoidance of medical tests, I’m fairly sure my parents will both outlive me.

And what will I care? I'll be dead.


So, anyway, my question is this… What nicknames do you give your pets?

or

Do you think "Robert De Niro's Mole" would be a good novel title?