Star Memory: The Arrival Of The Others

I was having a social evening with with friends, we were sitting at the kitchen table, chatting, drinking a little wine, when the front door made the dogs bark. Upon checking this, I found a leaflet had been pushed through the letterbox. It was an advertisement to take up a £20.000 loan, no questions asked, with three big headlines with pictures: How are you going to spend your money? giving the available choices.

A new car
Home improvements
Holiday

I put it on the table and we started discussing what we would do with that sum. And something weird happened. One person said they wanted to buy a piano. Why? So I can record music at home, sell it, get rich and buy my dream car!

We started laughing and tracing the various spending options. Someone said they wanted to buy a small farm (20 grand was worth a lot in 1996), someone else immediately pointed out that was a home improvement. More laughter.

Someone said they wanted to quit their job and move to Spain ... they didn't get any further before the entire group shouted, “Holiday!”

Yeah and there came that moment, after a few more examples which always ended up with one of the three (like paying for further education, to get a better job, thus earning more, thus having a nice house and lovely holidays, and a nice car) that I jumped up and shouted, "For the love of God! This is ridiculous! What are we? Total muppets? Is this really what life is all about - home improvements, cars and holidays? We can't think of anything better? Well, I don't want to be a home improving holiday car muppet - I want to be ... to be ... an OTHER!!!"

And that was the moment when the Others entered the room, and they've never really left.