Ask Aunt Daisy a question, and she will answer if she can…

Dear Aunt Daisy,

I have fallen into a hole and can’t get out. What do I do?

Yours truly, Clumsy of New Zealand.

Dear Clumsy,

This is the perfect opportunity to test that shovel you got last Christmas. Dig your way out. Failing that, holes often contain plenty of earthy grubs for eating, and enough dead foliage that you should be able to build a basic shelter. Why bother trying to get out?

Yours, Aunt Daisy.

Dear Aunt Daisy,

I’m hopelessly addicted to Brehaut.net. It consumes my every waking hour. How do I escape?

Yours truly, Socially Unfulfilled of Timaru

Dear Greg[BACKSPACE] Insul[BACKSPACE] “Socially Unfulfilled Apparently Of Timaru,”

See above answer.

Yours, Aunt Daisy.

Dear Aunt Daisy,

I am bored. Please entertain me.

Love the hair by the way.

Dear Bored,

Thanks so much! I’ve been experimenting with adding a bit of pink to the lavender perm; I think it’s really adding a certain je na sai quoi.

Entertainment is it? You young people these days with your short attention spans and your dependence on television and your hi-pods and your internets…

Let me tell you a story:

It was a dark and stormy night. Except that it was around midday, and the sun was shining. Uncle Tommy was washing the breakfast dishes when all of a sudden there was a rattling at the window above the sink. Rattle rattle!
Oh no! Snakes in a kitchen? ‘No,’ cried Fraser’s computer, ‘it is I! Or should that be “me”? I am rattling because I don’t have very much RAM!’
This didn’t, however, explain why the now-sentient computer was currently hovering outside Uncle Tommy’s kitchen window. (Later, in a fit of pique, Uncle Tommy would reformat said computer back to the start of the Unix epoch, but for now it was causing him headaches.)

“Am I going to have to format you again?” he growled at the aforementioned appliance. “I thought that defrag taught you enough of a lesson.”

BEEP said the computer.

“You what?!” spluttered Uncle Tommy. “How DARE you?”

BEEP, reiterated the computer.

Dazed by this shocking piece of news, Uncle Tommy stumbled backwards, his head swooning. Suddenly, he was surrounded by…

Cats. A herd of cats. Milling around aimlessly, meowing, tails curled into the air, occasionally swiping at each other with unsheathed claws. Cats. But hang on a moment, these were no ordinary cats. Slowly glancing up at the closest cat, Uncle Tommy was shocked to discover that where the cats’ eyes should be, instead there were…

Monitors. Tiny computer screens displaying news reports from around the world. Suddenly, the computer’s growing agitation about who-knows-what became a distant concern as Uncle Tommy was simultaneously bombarded with information on terrorism, African poverty and the soccer world cup. Terrified, he lashed out at the nearest feline, only to be knocked out cold by the computer, which had picked the lock and hovered its way into the kitchen, where its battery died- sending it plummeting onto Uncle Tommy’s head.

When Uncle Tommy came to, he was in his bed.

“Ah, it was only a dream,” he sighed. Then he sat up, looked at the cats covering every available surface in his bedroom, and screamed. A good, long, throaty scream, that left his throat stinging and his ears ringing. Because of this scream, Uncle Tommy developed vocal nodules and tinnitus. His local speech language therapist was not very impressed and prescribed him a vocal hygiene routine.

While Uncle Tommy was at therapy, his computer and the cats had the run of the house. This was a bad thing, largely because, in the absence of anyone paying attention to this page, they had gotten quite carried away and redecorated the entire house in pastels.

{Anyone may continue the story from this point. Leave this notice at the end.}

I don’t want to.