AM and I arranged to go out for a run together in outer space. We first needed to catch the space elevator to reach the starting point of the route. We piled in with some other runners and waited for the lift to spring into action.

When nothing happened I was nominated to press the buttons. I had no idea what to do, so AM stepped in, suggesting that the lift probably operated like those on campus at her university. She was right. As soon as she had punched in the numbers the lift headed skywards and we soon arrived at our destination.

We had just disembarked when my Canadian friend BD appeared out of nowhere and stapled a credit card sized rectangle of plastic to my cheek.

“There you are, all set” he announced proudly.

“When will it come off?” I asked.

“Never”, he replied, “It’s permanent”.

AM and I had never expected that our day would turn out like this when we had been merrily eating doughnuts and discussing our husbands in a café first thing that very same morning.