Sometimes people ask me, where do you get your ideas from? And sometimes I reply, ideas can come from anywhere and everywhere. Inspiration is all around: in the news, online, on TV, on the streets.
For example, today I noticed a banner strewn across Mosman’s Military road that read: “There’s no such thing as the dog poo fairy”.
But what if there was a Mosman dog poo fairy?
Her tale might go something like this …

“I shouldn’t exist,” thought the Mosman dog poo fairy as she flitted above the streets of Mosman on her magical wings. “I shouldn’t be.”
The Mosman dog poo fairy was often struck by such existential thoughts as she carried out her job, magic wand in one hand, plastic bag in the other, collecting the excreta of the pampered pooches and poodles of that elite suburb. Like most living creatures she was grateful to exist: and yet, she couldn’t help but yearn for a different life, one where she literally wasn’t wing-deep in “poodle dust” each day.
She watched as a leotard-wearing woman in her late forties let her Siberian husky befoul the local park. The fairy hovered out of sight as the dog did its business. Then, when the dog abandoned the scene of the crime with a contended shake of its hindlegs, the fairy flew down to perform her magical duty.
“Why couldn’t I be the bloody tooth fairy instead?” she thought as she shovelled the turd into the bag with the use of her wand. “All he has to do is collect teeth. No shit at all. AND he gets paid!”
The fairy deposited the dog’s waste into a nearby bin, then flew up into the sky and waited for the next dog in Mosman to do its business.
One of the worst parts of the job – apart from literally cleaning up turds – was that it had turned her into a dog hater. As a basic cherub, yet to mature into a fairy, the Mosman poo fairy had loved dogs. Alsatians, poodles, pit bulls, sausage dogs, Dobermans … she loved them all.
Then she gets the letter from Fairy Central about her new job and … wham! Within a few months she could no longer picture a dog – any dog – without imagining what came out of its backside.
Sometimes she marvelled at just how much came out of the tiniest of dogs. Some were literally turd factories, their waste gathering unattended on the corners of Mosman in coiled mounds.
Talk about being given the shih tzus.
Then there were the owners. She hated them most of all. She hated their laziness, their selfishness, their refusal to do the right thing and clean up after their dogs. It was hard to say who the worst offenders were, men or women, young or old. Sometimes the fairy was surprised – the most innocent-looking person, the sweetest old lady, could be the worst culprit, gleefully encouraging their pet to purge itself and congratulating it on its efforts before moving away, no attempt at poo removal made in blatant violation of the Companion Animals Act of 1998.
Some owners at least had the decency to pretend they were doing the right thing, clutching a plastic bag in their hands, them “forgetting” to clean up afterwards.
“Oh … I didn’t clean up after my Belgian barge dog? I’ll do it right now! Soooreeee!”
Others were more brazen, letting their dogs crap out in the open without even the pretence of a bag.
These people usually owned German shepherds.
She sighed. Being the Mosman dog poo fairy was a thankless task. One that no one – not even a fairy – should be called to perform.
The Mosman dog poo fairy was called back to attention when she spotted one of her usual suspects.
There she was again: the well-heeled woman of a certain age, walking her toy poodle. There to let her beast “do its business”. And madam without a plastic bag to pick up the mess. (Or was it madame? The Mosman poo fairy was never sure if it was Madam Butterfly or Madame Butterfly … or even Madama Butterfly?)
Anyway, Madama Butterfly and her dog had been befouling Mosman for years now and no one had ever called her up on it.
Usually the fairy believed in a strict policy of non-intervention in human affairs. Yet the fairy also liked to believe that there were unwritten rules in society … one of them being that you had to clean up after your pet. If everyone did what Madama Butterfly did, we’d have anarchy. The streets of Mosman would resemble Paris, the boulevards festooned with dog merde. Someone had to make a stand. Check that: some fairy.
The Mosman dog poo fairy flew into action just as the poodle stopped shaking its leg, a satisfied post-crap look on its tiny face.
“Hi there,” began the enchanted fairy. “I noticed that your dog just crapped on that front lawn. I was wondering if you were going to pick it up.”
The owner looked the other way.
“I mean,” continued the fairy, performing a figure-eight in the air, ”you’ve been letting your dog soil the grass for years without picking up his business. I was hoping that one day you’d do the neighbourly thing and bring along one of those black plastic bags and collect the crap. You know, like everyone else does. Or at least most people do. OK, some do.”
The owner refused to acknowledge the fairy’s presence as she fluttered near her heard.
“I’ve been watching you,” said the fairy in her tiny, tinkly voice. “Not in a creepy Sting ‘I’ll be watching you’ way, but in a neighbourhood watch way. And I have to say, it hasn’t been a pretty sight, what with all the lawn defilements. But your poodle has an excuse. I can’t expect little Cujo there to pick up his own mess. That’s your job. So … ummm … next time you come by here, please make sure you’re ready to clean up after Mr Tiddles there.”
The woman started walking away without so much as a by-your-leave. “I hate bringing this up as much as you do having to hear it,” shouted the fairy after her. “I didn’t wake up this morning and decide to play the role of dog faeces enforcer! I didn’t choose this life! It was thrust upon me! I had no choice! But you do! You do!”
But of course, the woman hadn’t heard the fairy. Or seen her.
The humans never did. Because she was a fairy. An invisible fairy.
The Mosman dog poo fairy.
“God I hate my job,” she sighed. But no one was listening.

My new ebook military thriller, The Spartan, is now available on Amazon.