It was mid afternoon when he woke up. He slowly opened his eyes to greet the sun and sluggishly looked at the clock on the bedside cabinet. 1:00. Next to the clock was small note which read ‘call me’. “That’s odd,” he thought thoughtfully “I don’t remember writing this.” He turned the note over and found additional information. A phone number followed by a smiley face. “I wonder who it could be.” he said to himself and any others in the room, of which there were none.

This man was Owen Trump. A local businessman who had more money than he could fit in his wallet. During the previous night he had went out drinking with his two wallets and met a nice young girl called Susan. She talked while he drunk. They went back to his place and may have done something he would later regret. She left before he woke, leaving a note asking him to call her with a smiley face. This is what happened when he did call her:

“Hello… who is this? … No, I know who I am, who are you? … Susan? Susan who? … Oh right, the girl from the bar last night. How are you? … Uh huh… Yeah i’m fine. A bit hungover. Hey, do you want to grab some lunch later? … You do! Oh great. Shall we meet by Wetherspoons in say an hour? … Great, see you then then.”

This is what happened on the other end of the line:

Nothing.

Nothing at all happened on the other end of the line, because there was nobody there. You see, Owen Trump lived a lie. He was too busy doing business-things to socialise and so he would pretend he had a social life in order to prevent deep depression. Most weekends he would go out drinking, come home alone drunk, write himself a note to call his old mobile phone, then wake up the next morning too hungover to remember any of it. He would then proceed to ring himself, try to remember what girl he had imagined last night, invite her/himself out to dinner and then go to dine alone.

So once again he set out to dine with himself. Upon entering the local cafe, he asked for a table for two, which the waiter assumed meant his company was to join him later. So he sat and waited for his date. He ordered two drinks while he was waiting. After an hour she had not arrived. He had drunk both of the drinks and was now feeling quite hungry. So he ordered some food. But in an attempt not to appear rude, he ordered for both him and his delayed date. After she did not show for dinner, he decided to eat both meals, gaining him a number of odd looks from both the staff and fellow diners. Feeling rather embarrassed he paid the bill and got up to leave.

But just as he was leaving, a girl came rushing through the door. “Sorry i’m late.” she panted, now establishing herself as Owen’s date. Owen smiled and turned to the other diners, announcing “See, I told you I wasn’t crazy!” Thus making him appear crazier than he had been eating two sirloin steaks.