7th February, 2002.

"Did I tell you my cat had her kittens the other day?"

No, please do. Please tell me you videotaped the happy event so I can see it with my own eyes.

This was followed by the inevitable description of what the cat looked like, and comparisons with the patterns and colours of the kittens (right down to the colour of their claws). This would conceivably be useful to me if I was a cat-kicking type of person and frequented her neighbourhood, because at least then I'd know what animals to abuse. But I don't belong to either category, and I know I didn't look interested while she was telling me this because I was busy replying to work e-mails while she wittered on.

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"And these people received this much mail, and this person received no mail, probably because they changed sections recently. And you got these letters, and they're from <insert names>, but I think they're all junk mail."

Cool! Junk mail - I can throw it straight in the bin. What am I supposed to do with junk conversations, though?

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On the bright side she seems to have finally learned how to look for the names of departments that don't immediately leap out of the database at her in response to her experimental key-strokes. The next step is to train her to stop shouting out every goddamn step in the process.

"I think it might be this! No that doesn't work. I think they're a part of this department! No, that doesn't work. I thought they were a part of this department, but they're not. Maybe I could try this! No that didn't work, either." 

And so on. Very stream-of-consciousness.

Annoying as that was, it didn't come close to the hysterical jubilation at having finally found the "missing" name. 

And, of course, once the celebrations died down it was my fault again for entering the name incorrectly in the first place, because I entered it under its actual name rather than its popular acronym.

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As I type she's on the phone to her husband (as part of her solid 45 minute personal phone-call marathon) and is explaining to him exactly what noise the phone makes when the person at the other end hangs up.

Dear god, now she's imitating the sound to let him know what it sounds like! She's sitting at her desk going "Doop-doop-doop-doop!" down the phone at him.

How did these people ever manage to conceive a child, let alone avoid killing it within the first two weeks of its life?

All this and it's not even lunchtime yet...