10 Things I Learned Putting Together a Murder Mystery Weekend

(But first: All das Beste zum Geburtstag (and always) to my littlest cousin!)

Planning murder mysteries can be an educational experience. You learn how your friends deal with competition, who likes to dress up in costumes, and how to cook for fifteen people.

You also learn things that are a little more random than than.

1. How to cast in plaster.

Greasing the inside of the mold is key. So is getting the plaster to a creamy, pancake-batter consistency. And you’re supposed to jar the mold a bit once you’ve poured to get rid of air bubbles. Also, it’s normal for plaster to heat up while setting. Also, once it has set, it can be sanded or carved.

I’m glad I read about the heating-up part before it happened, because, really, it gets pretty hot. If you’re not expecting it, it would be a shock.

2. Searching for “censored porn” on Google, even with Safe Search on, is not a good way to find already censored pornographic images.

However, there are a surprising number of people (or perhaps one very prolific person) whose hobby is taking explicit pornographic stills and drawing over them in MS Paint to make the individuals involved appear to be doing something hilariously G-rated.

3. Making a treacle sponge is pretty easy.

So is getting really sick of treacle sponge when you do a dry-run bake before the main event to make sure you can.

At least my local supermarket carries golden syrup. And the sticky pan is a lot easier to clean than you’d think.

4. I am really bad at estimating large numbers.

If it’s over twenty, I severely underestimate the number of, say, candies in a jar, raisins in a bag, pages in a notebook, or squares on a checked tablecloth. I am always pleasantly surprised to find the clue for which I thought I’d just barely have the resources turns out to take just a little of the reserves at hand. A 30×50 square grid on a checked tablecloth is actually not that big. You can probably fit four on the average dollar-store cloth.

5. Writing in invisible ink is hard.

Actually, the writing part is pretty easy. Writing nicely is hard. Writing legibly strains the bounds of my ability but is doable. UV ink is actually best: it takes a few minutes to disappear, so you can see what you’re doing. (It doesn’t glow well on dark surfaces, though, and if you’re writing on a piece of tape, you should write on the tape before you stick it down; otherwise even  after the ink has faded away, the imprints where the pressure of your writing pressed the tape harder against the surface will remain until you pull up the tape and re-stick it. The more you know…) Invisible-ink kids’ markers are near-impossible unless you have just the right lighting, and they disappear SO FAST. On a related note…

6. Crayola colour-switching markers are no longer sold in Canada.

Seriously, I had to order them specially from the US. How weird is that? I used to have a set of those things when I was a kid. Ah, for the long-lost days of yesteryear!

On the other hand, now they each come two-sided: colour-changing marker on one side, special invisible decoder marker on the other. So you don’t accidentally lose or run out of the colour-changing ink.

Also, FYI, the blue ones systematically don’t work very well. All the other colours are fine, though. In case you were wondering.

7. Invisible-ink writing should be on one side of the page only.

Otherwise, the bleed-through makes it difficult to read.

8. What a diversion safe is.

I had no idea these things existed, which I guess is the point. Diversion safes are secret compartments that are designed to look like something else. For example, you can buy a whole bunch of realistic-looking pop cans that have false bottoms that you can unscrew to reveal a hidden compartment for money or jewelry (or, judging by the number of online DIY tutorials that refer to it as a place to hide one’s “stash,” other things too…). The really good ones have another compartment that’s been weighted with liquid so the can has the right weight and sounds right when you shake it.

Although there are tons of tutorials for making a diversion safe yourself, usually the pop-can kind, my first spectacularly failed attempt convinced me to shell out the $30-40 dollars and get one made by a pro. I drained the can fine, but the mangled heap of metal I ended up with would have fooled no one. Luckily, Toronto has a ton of Spy Tech stores, which is also where I got my UV markers.

9. NEVER ATTEMPT TO CRACK AN EGG INTO A BOWL ON THE EDGE OF YOUR COUNTER WHEN THE DRAWERS ARE OPEN UNDERNEATH.

#&$*& (#$*(&!!!!!

10. Even if you don’t like anise, it still can be pleasant mixed with other things.

I never would have guessed that anise would taste okay with salt, mint, citrus, and other non-anise tastes, particularly since I don’t like anise on its own. But I suppose I should’ve been able to guess, given that Loblaws used to make multi-grain crackers that I liked that had aniseed in them.

It even is sort of okay with mint toothpaste (which doesn’t mean you’re off the hook, Ryan!!!).