Conversations with Maggie

Today I walked into Redhill with Maggie. Along the way we had a rather interesting conversation, which I will now attempt to convey, although I may miss out on some of the nuances. As we were walking, Maggie obviously slipped into imagination land, and told me that she had a caravan for a house, which had an upstairs and a downstairs, and began filling me in on the details of her caravan/house. As we discussed this, she casually mentioned that she stayed there with her children, so I asked her how many children she had. She said she had 61. I said that seemed like a lot, and I hoped they were all well behaved. She said they were except for the ones who were always throwing trash everywhere. I asked her about what happened to them when they threw trash everywhere and she said that the other children picked up after them. She then said that she actually used to have 100 children, but the 39 who threw trash everywhere, she sent back to their mommy, who happened to be Miss Missy.

So having established that the 61 children she had were well-behaved, I asked about their names. She said that she had named four of them, but the rest didn't have names yet. The four she had named were Aladdin, Jasmine, Belle, and The Beast, who was a prince. I then inquired as to her marital status, and I was glad to find out that she was married. Unfortunately, she didn't know her husband's name, because she didn't think he had ever told her. (She later recollected that his name was Bono Johnson.)

We then discussed her job, and I discovered that she was a nurse, a doctor's assistant, and a chef at a restaurant. I asked what she did as a nurse, and she said that she gave people shots in their knees to make them feel better, but only if they came in at 12:00. She also apparently is responsible for hitting their knees with a thing made of wood and rocks (but not a hammer) to make people feel better, and showing them the "E" chart to test their eyes. Apparently, her shifts run from 6 am to 10 am in the morning for her restaurant work, and then she works from 5 to 10 pm as a nurse/doctor's assistant - although I'm not sure how that works for people who need to get shots at 12.

She was kind enough to invite me in to stay the night, since they had 102 beds (apparently she and Bono don't sleep together anymore, so I'm pretty happy about that.) She said that they were having pancakes in the morning, and I asked her if I would be able to sleep in. She said that they had 102 alarm clocks, and they could all be set for the same time. I have to admit I'm a little frightened of Maggie's world...