THE CORRUPTED DINKUS

I woke up and my dinkus had corrupted. I guessed it had happened overnight, but really, with a dinkus, who knows? The man who had sold it to me had given me a good price, perhaps too good, looking back on it now. Sure, it had been second-hand, but the man had assured me that the previous owner hadn't really used it all that much, and from looking at it, it certainly seemed to be nearly brand new.

But now it had corrupted, and I wished I had kept that instruction manual. It was a big phone book of a thing, and I thought, seriously, how hard can it be to operate a dinkus? Boy, I really needed some advice. A quick call to directory enquiries found me connected to what claimed to be a dinkus helpline, but after only talking to them for five minutes, it seemed they had no idea what a dinkus even was. Frustrated, I called my doctor, who luckily could fit me in over a cancelled appointment.

I turned up at the surgery in what I can only describe as a state of some stress. During the short trip to the surgery, my dinkus had re-corrupted, compounding the problems set off by the first corruption, and adding a rather worrying groaning noise. I burst into the surgery and the woman behind the counter, who knows me, immediately threw her hands over her eyes and screamed as if I were some kind of monster. She flung open the door to the doctor's office without even a word.

Needless to say that I—at this point—was in more than considerable discomfort—my dinkus having corrupted not just once but twice, and the distinct possibility that the groaning noise meant a third corruption—and that simply holding together my thoughts well enough to talk to the doctor was taking a massive effort on my part.

The doctor, for his part, remained professional throughout the whole consultation (a consultation which had been made far more urgent by the receptionist's screams into his intercom which had, I found out, preceding me into the room). The doctor, I knew, had been to war, and had seen things that no man should, but still his face took on a distinct tinge of green when I showed him my grossly over-corrupted dinkus. He put a hand to his face, and made a sound like muffled whale-song, but to his credit he still slipped on the rubber gloves, and gave my dinkus a full and rigorous inspection.

When he was done, he gestured that I should take a seat beside his desk. This was an offer I was all too ready to accept, except by this stage, I would not be able to do so without significant further damage to my dinkus. The doctor sat in his own chair, steepled his fingers, and gave me—in a deep, trembling voice—the sobering news that I would have to give up my dinkus, or risk its permanent and irrevocable damage.

With a lump in my throat, and a tear in my eye, I told the doctor to do whatever he thought was necessary. My health came first, I knew, but boy oh boy was I going to miss that dinkus.