Tapeless
By Matthew Green
Lucy Loo was getting anxious. She was running late for work (at the strip joint), and just had time to set the video machine recording Friends before she ran out of the door.
Later that night, Lucy returned home, completely sick of the ogling bastards (but very happy with the tips) and collapsed into the couch. She was just about to watch Friends on tape, when she realised, quite to her utter annoyance that she had forgotten to put a tape in the machine before she set it off recording.
Already sick to the teeth, she stormed off to bed.
Lucy awoke the next morning far too early for her liking and turned the television on to see Johnny Vaughn prattling on about a spelling mistake made in the Daily Sport, coming up with all manner of unfunny anecdotes. Tiring of this, she picked a video at random and put it in the machine.
She set the tape playing, and was flabbergasted when what appeared on screen was friends: the one you thought you’d missed.
Later that day Lucy Loo was sitting in the hair salon with the ‘girls’, nattering away about whatever it is that women natter away about (most likely their time of the month, or what they’ve been knitting lately).
"The oddest thing happened last night," said Lucy, interrupting a woman who was griping about how much her bosoms were aching lately, "I recorded friends, but I forgot to put a tape in, and when.."
Lucy was interrupted by Mavis, who’d just swollowed her false teeth in shock.
"Eee, you never did, did you?" said Mavis, in the tones of the clinically senile.
"Erm, yes actually, I did."
"Well, y’ know what happens when you do that, don’t you? You must know what happens."
"Why don’t you tell me?" came the testy response.
"Well, y’know, y’see, the video machine has no tape to put the recording onto, y’see?"
"Go on."
"So, anyway, I says Derek, Derek I says.."
"TELL ME ABOUT THE VIDEO!!!"
"Oh, right. See, the recording escapes out of the machine, because there’s no tape blocking it, see, and it escapes into the atmosphere, imprinting the filum onto every tape in the world," said Mavis, sitting back smugly.
"Don’t mind her," said Ethyl, who was wearing a jack russel terrier as a hat, "she’s barmy as bluebells."
Lucy managed a smile.
"Oh. Right," she said.
The Professor was the owner of the biggest playboy video collection in the world, and was right peeved off when he discovered that all his tapes had been replaced with Friends:the one you thought you’d missed.
It occurred to him, for he was very big of brain, that somebody had set a video machine recording, without putting a tape in first. A most heinous crime indeed!
He had to track this somebody, so he took out his rogue video machine signal tracking device, which led him to Lucy’s house.
When Lucy answered the door, The Professor was heard to remark: "Ey, I’ve seen you at the strip joint, haven’t I?"
Lucy looked the lab coat wearing oaf up and down. He’s some kind of pervert, was her understandable conclusion.
"You have brought about the end of civilisation as we know it," were the first words out of The Professor’s mouth.
"What?" said Lucy.
"You forgot to put a tape in your machine. All tapes on the planet have been affected!"
"Huh?"
"Think about it," said The, making dramatic gestures, and indulging in much of the arm waving, "every copy of all the great classics ever made have been completely replaced by an episode of Friends. And it isn’t even a very good one! All the world will be inundated by new films, which consist entirely of Jean-Claude Van Dam beating up baddies and doing the splits!"
"You’re talking out of your back eye!"
Just then a passing cyclist was knocked off his bike by a suicidal dog, causing him to drop his radio, which landed at Lucy’s feet(though what a dog would be doing with a radio is anybodies guess).
"And in international news," said the radio news announcer blokey, "all tapes on the planet have had their contents replaced by an episode of Friends. This is believed to have happened because somebody set their video machine recording, without first putting a tape in it…"
Lucy gawped in amazement.
"That’s totally unrealistic," she said, "It would never happen in real life."
"Ahh but it has," said The Professor, "and the matter will go to the highest court."
Everybody stared at the judge, waiting for his decision.
"It is my decree," said he, "that all home video recorders will be repossessed and outlawed, in order to prevent this heinous misuse of technology from occurring again."
The people in the courtroom grudgingly agreed with this, apart from Lucy, who just stood in the courtroom muttering to herself.
"It would never happen in real life," she said.
THE END