[LazyScot]

I hate Thursdays. Not, it has to be said as much as other things, but it is not my favourite of days. As usual, all manner of people who have decided to take Friday off suddenly realise that something they heard about on Monday now needs doing. And, of course, you are always the perfect person to do it. And Thursday, being Thursday, has at least 37 working hours in it, doesn't it? And, of course, BetterHalf wanted me to look at something in *that* store…

Anyhow, that provides a bit of backdrop to my arriving at Adrian through Thursday, only to be met by something so terrifying that I froze in shock and disbelief.

THUMP!

After I recovered from being spatio-temporally co-incident with a water-loving avian resident of Adrian's (i.e. I got hit by the duck).

THUMP!

This time, I crawled forward before I stood up, and started spluttering at Marc whilst pointing at the new addition to the games area.

"Ssss… B.b.b.but… e.e.e.evil…… w.w.w.why? b.b.b.but… E.e.e.eye. E.e.e.eye k.k.k.key y.y.y.yah. IKEA?" I eventually managed indicating the model of our local store surrounded by catalogues (though, fortunately, also a baseball bat).

"Don't worry. It's not what it seems," said Marc, passing over a ZCD as an antidote to Thursdays and a trip to Ikea.

"Then what the…" I, and everyone else, fell silent. Marc had turned round and opened the little glass cabinet that contained the key. Marc took out the key and walked over to the mythical quadruple glass cabinet, and to a chorus of ooohs and aaahs unlocked the cabinet and reverentially removed the quadruple ZCD stein. Before we could ask, Monday's door slammed open, and we were deafened.

"shums" Zelda explained, with a conviction that you would not have thought her lungs were capable of.

As we picked ourselves up off the floor and replaced the furniture following Zelda's explanation, Marc continued, completely untroubled, filling the quadruple ZCD stein. (I personally suspect that the bar area has various scientifically impossible force fields protecting the bar-entity from untoward events occurring within the bar. After all, there was the mishap that Slite had with the Nerf Vulcan EBF-25 that he "pimped" himself, including a turbo-charged burst mode and an auto-targeting system. He'd also developed a belt feed compatible with chocolate bars, and crispy bacon rashers and then assembled an exceptionally long belt with alternate bars and bacon rashers. This would not have caused much of a problem, but for the fact that both GeoffC and VivaldiRules were present, and hungry, Mrs Al Paca's sous-chef took exception, the burst mode jammed, the nerf gun overheated to the point of melting the chocolate, and someone spilled some ZCD onto the targeting system. Somehow, Marc and the serving area behind the bar remained the only parts that did not become part of an impressive fake of a Jackson Pollock. Which really disappointed Vivaldi as he'd hope for something more Francis Bacon. Strangely, no-one seems to know what happened to the Nerf gun at the end of that episode…. worryingly.)

"shums." Reiterated Zelda, directly at what I was convinced was the model Ikea store, before charging towards it and picking up the baseball bat. "shums." She repeated as she set about whatever it was, adding assorted words in French that had Verencat (in her "Mac was entrapped" teeshirt) blushing, and various other English words conveying an impression that the shums had not been particularly quiet or helpful. Strangely, she seemed to be beating some small plates of fresh crusty bread, assorted cheeses, olives and garnished with some frisée leaves out of the whatever it was she was hitting. A few minutes later, somewhat subdued, she put down the bat, collected the plates and wandered over to the bar where Marc passed Zelda the now full quadruple ZCD stein.

"thanks marc. that is an excellent addition to the bar," indicating the thing she had just been beating. And with that she accepted the stein and emptied it in one swift, continuous motion. "ahhhh. i needed that," and with which she promptly disappeared and then re-appeared over in Saturday's most comfortable sofa, courtesy of a highly tuned ZCD temporal shift (marc is incredibly adept at mixing the ZCDs *just so*, allowing him to send his customers just where or when he likes. At least that was his explanation for why I found myself suddenly and unexpectedly sitting on a rather large Yucca after I asked if he stocked Fosters. In my defence, I *intended* it as a joke.). Immediately upon her arrival on the Saturday sofa, a pair of cats that had condescended to adopt Adrian's as one of their palaces took instant advantage of the arrival of the biological-version of an electric blanket. Jumping on-board, they padded around to soften up their new throne and curled up, purring contentedly, just as Mrs Al Paca brought Zelda with one of her vegetable and noodle broth specials. Finishing the broth, replete and relaxed Zelda gently dozed off, for a good 40 kilometre snooze.

"So what is that Ikea thing, Marc?"

"It’s not Ikea, its---"

"Lusers"

"Evil Developer"

"Comcast"

"Farking Winter."

"Authors"

"Nerf Guns"

"Microsoft"

Interrupted various Adrionians through their drinks.

"a psionic piñata," continued Marc, oblivious to the interruptions (but doubtlessly filing the interruptions away on the relevant tabs), with all the clarity of a Chinese whisper that had travelled through John Prescott, George Bush, Nicolas Sarkozy, two Professors of Obfuscation and five year old girl in a top shop shortly before Christmas.

"You what?" seemed the only response.

"It's a piñata that Adrian found when he popped into a nearby universe to have some fun at a Symposium on Victory Techniques for Evil Geniuses. (He's been banned from attending any of them in this universe after terrifying too many delegates.) The piñata has a psionic detection component. It reads your mind and alters itself to represent what it reads. Currently Adrian has it set to what you hate, but if can be changed to all sorts of other things."

"So why, in the name of the first ZCD, do you have set to show what people hate?"

"Therapy," said Elle from the ceiling.

"Exactly. You see, it is a piñata."

"Okay. I presume you are attempting to confuse me into submission."

"Nonsense, have a swift ZCD and it will make sense," and Marc proffered a ZCD. "It's actually very obvious. The piñata is full of nice things and is meant to be hit. As you hit it, you take out your stress and hatred, and at the same time get a shower of treats. And with a little bit of this pavlovian conditioning and you will cope far better with the object of you hatred. Or at least that's the idea," he added watching Pshrynk attacking the piñata for what I later leaned was the eighty-seventh time.

"Oh, hello DixieGal, it's nice to have you back."

"It's nice to be back. Ah, thank you," she added as Marc passed here a glass of freshly made proper lemonade.

"I've a question. What do you see over there, in the games area?"

"Where?"

"There," I said indicating the Ikea store and catalogues.

"Nothing, though there is a baseball bat nearby."

"Nothing?"

"Yes."

I looked quizzically at Marc.

"Why, LazyScot, do you think people like and respect DixieGal so much? She doesn't have it in her to hate, or at least not in the way most people do. So the piñata has nothing to show her, and so it becomes invisible. As it does to a few other people."

"So what do you see, then?"

Marc proffered me a Long Island Iced Tea with a ZCD chaser and his trademark poly-syllabic enigmatic smile.

So I enjoyed the Iced Tea, ZCD and the friendship of Adrian's, and do you know what? Ikea and Thursday slowly faded from my mind and the games area.