I was an intern for a large multinational company. They didn’t really know what to do with me, so I ended up staffing the main reception desk with a team of young men dressed in black trousers, dark grey shirts and red ties.
Really I preferred to be across the road at my mother-in-law’s house. There I could knit in peace while watching Wimbledon with my brother-in-law.
One day when I sneaked away from work to trot over the to the house I had a marvellous surprise: my Malaysian “daughter” had come to visit. As a special treat my mother-in-law was busy serving her the most delicious looking plate of seafood – at four in the afternoon.
When the tall, dark 17 year-old took my hand and led me away from the others I questioned his motives. It was very hard to believe that all he wanted was for me to be his girlfriend.
MH guided me through the tube station and on to the platform for the train to St Pancras, and then on to Luton. It was along the way that my iPhone slipped out of my black trouser pocket and plummeted down a lift shaft onto the train track below. The ensuing delays on the line were all my fault.
The evidence of the prince’s poisoning was right there in front of me: a spent yellow-green serpent lay on the ground. I suspected that the culprit was the foreign man in the red and gold velvet Ali Baba costume.
Should we sue the international HCI conference organisers for playing with our minds?
Our first complaint was that they had provided us with “unstable” catering. The bread sticks on the buffet table at lunch time transformed into croissants at will. You couldn’t be sure that what you added to your plate at the table would be the same item by the time you took your seat in the dining room.
More serious was that none of us could recall any of the sessions from the Wednesday afternoon. To our horror, we eventually worked out that we had all been unwillingly hypnotised.
We lived on a very long train. I kept annoying TPR by identifying narrow gaps in the carriages where we could insert Ikea Billy bookcases.
Things were getting really complicated at work. I agreed to meet my colleagues in the pub as soon as I had finished, set off to join them, then realised I had no time, promised to catch up with them later, and then failed to turn up.
Worst of all was N’s faux pas: he took me into the gents to complain about B when B himself was in the next cubicle. To our shame, B heard everything.
My sister S was a world-leading authority on cholera.
Dreamaticus 