Eleanor had woken from her coma early and after several weeks of physiotherapy, nourishing soups and hospital jazzercise she was allowed a brief trip to the city to see all the marvellous things that had changed.
The rocket trolleys, hand-wobblers and spacey tingle-toggles certainly were impressive but there was one thing that stuck in her memory the most.
As she was assisted onto the train by her therapist she first noticed that all the commuters sat or stood silently wearing ornate lampshades over their heads.
"What are those?" she asked with a quizzical look upon her face.
"Why, they are Lamp-Hat Spineroo's, and they will turn even the saddest of frowns - upside down!" the therapist replied.
Upon closer inspection, lights were flashing from within the lampshade as if a myriad of delightful fireflies were having a jolly party. Then, seemingly in random fashion, the entire lampshade would spin around and stop suddenly before more lights - with different colours this time - would flash and flicker inside.
"They spin!" Eleanor remarked, seated now beside a gentleman in a crisp new business suit with one of these amazing devices on his head.
She peered closer, up and under, to see that the lamp-shade was attached to the top of his head on a soft little harness strap that tied cutely beneath his beard.
"What a strange grin he has," she thought to herself, "and his eyes - how they dart and roll about!"
There on top of his head - a series of levers and dynamos with a battery like attachment, powered hundreds of small grape-sized bulbs that flashed randomly and spinning the entire thing around every now and then with a comical 'whizz!' sound.
She also noticed he was wearing ear phones - but she couldn't quite make out what exactly it was that they were playing.
Just then the train pulled into a station. As if in unison, all the businessmen pulled the drawstring on their Lamp Hats (which extinguished the playful light display within) and flipped open a small aperture at eye level so they might safely trot out onto the platform and to their workplaces.
Once fully recovered, Eleanor later found part-time employment in a pool of tepid water somewhere to the north.-- benfrost, Nov 23 2005 This is putting ideas into my nog regarding holding a disco within a spindryer.-- skinflaps, Nov 23 2005 What about 'Lamp-Hat Spineroo' buyer's remorse:
"Oh, I wish I had purchased the Deluxe-Super-Mega model instead. Then I might be as happy as Bob."-- sleeka, Nov 23 2005 This is striking me as very familiar... Not lampshades per se, but a TV show or cartoon were people put on some sort of VR "game" and the whole town was lulled into it's addictive "spell" -- The Simpson's? Twilight Zone? I remember the images being like morphing cones with a mind-controlled cup and ball sequence. Does anyone recall this?-- Zuzu, Nov 23 2005 Googling employment + tepid water led me to some interesting places...-- normzone, Nov 23 2005 Zuzu, there was something like that on star trek once - everyone got addicted and things looked bad for a while, but they sorted it out in the end.-- fridge duck, Nov 23 2005 Yes! That was *exactly* it, thanks [fridge duck]. Sadly, I had googled this to death with no result.
GD trekkie plots infecting my brain. A pox on them! [+]-- Zuzu, Nov 23 2005 You had my bun with the title. The 'idea' was just a bonus.-- wagster, Nov 26 2005 Yes Virginia, there is a Sorta Claus, and his name this year is benfrost. Thank you so much for taking me on a journey that I won't soon forget. I want one, but am a little concerned about fitting it into my traveling hat box. (What if it came to life while in the luggage compartment?)
Bravo, for style, content, and presentation.-- blissmiss, Nov 27 2005 When I just googled "employment tepid water" there were a bunch of science-y sites and this one. Awesome.-- PollyNo9, Nov 28 2005 random, halfbakery