It’s a long-standing tradition of the Mysterious Beings that, when one of us has a birthday, the other band members gather to sing Happy Birthday to him. It’s a team-building and cohesion thing and extends beyond the band to our whole support team, so, when our Social Media Intern, Cher Maposte, celebrated her birthday the other day, we all went round to her apartment to sing for her. All except keyboard player, Gene Poole-Skimmings, who was nowhere to be found. This was not particularly surprising as Gene is not popular with the rest of the band and his presence tends to undo the whole team-building thing.

We had just finished singing to a smiling Cher in her kitchen when, to our shock, Gene emerged from the bedroom totally naked. He seemed surprised to see us. “Oh, so that’s what that awful noise was,” he said.

Now, a night in the company of loathsome love-lizard Gene Poole-Skimmings is not the kind of birthday present I would wish even on my worst enemy and, Cher, despite her many faults, is not my worst enemy. Frankly, you’d have to be really stupid to fall for Gene’s dubious charms, of which dogged persistence is the least obnoxious and the only one with any effect.

Gene made no attempt to cover his nakedness. Instead he went over to the counter and plugged in the toaster. Then he started looking for bread. Realizing there was none, he muttered irritably, “What kind of idiot has a toaster but no bread?”

“The kind of idiot who would let you anywhere near her,” I thought to myself, and the first line of a song formed in my head…..