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It was the mid 90s and a bunch of us needed to find places to live before uni went back for another year. By chance, one of us stumbled upon a house big enough for all takers but a few blocks from campus. The house should probably have been condemned, but that turned out to be one of the more minor quirks to this large share house. One of the weirder, more entertaining aspects was one of our neighbors. Let's call him Barry. The day we moved in, Barry was apparently absent, though there were signs of things to come...

It was understandably chaos with six of us moving in. None of us could afford moving vans or removalists so everything came in cars, it took many, many car loads but sometime in the morning we heard a dog barking in distress. Being new to the block, we didn't do anything immediately as we didn't want to make trouble if there was none. Towards lunch time we decided we had to investigate and discovered a small dog shut in the garage of one of the apartments next door. Well, we called the RSPCA and let them know we were concerned. Shortly after this a fire appeared in the adjacent garage. We investigated that too, albeit somewhat more quickly. It was then we met Barry. He had agreed to mind a neighbors dog, but didn't want to have it in his apartment. With no other place for it o go, he put it in the garage. He was then worried about it, so figured he'd spend some time near it by discharging his duties as janitor come manager for the building by burning some rubbish. During this explanation, one of us ducked off to call off the RSPCA. The friend arrived shortly after this, and needless to say, never asked Barry to mind his pooch again.

It would turn out that this would be one of Barry's saner moments. Barry would keep us entertained, horrified and sometimes saddened for the rest of that year. A couple of days after we moved in, Barry arrived on our veranda. He wore a grotty old Akubra and seemed to be carrying a ladies thigh-high patent leather stiletto. Encouraged by our lack of aggression and attitude, Barry settled in to introduce himself and spin a few yarns. Once he was comfortable, he brandished the boot, unzipping it as he did, to reveal a couple of stubbies*. While we marveled at his unique stubby holder he politely offered all present a beer. Unsurprisingly, we all declined, thankfully, Barry didn't take any offense at this and happily opened his own, whilst carefully replacing the others. He then settled in to reveal a little about himself.

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