fantasy death?
one delightful colleague of mine lies constantly, to the extent that none of us are sure if she even exists. For example, she claims to be a post-doctoral researcher to anyone she meets, despite the fact that she has no PhD, and when questioned futher it turns out that her PhD took 1/2/3/4/5/6 or maybe 7 years to do, but she ran out of money/didn't write up in time/was beaten to a publication by another lab/fell out with her supervisor/was abducted by aliens* etc etc

That's a minor thing though. What gets to me is her Zelig**-like ability to know everyone in the world, and to be everywhere something of interest has happened.

This was best exemplified on July 7th 2005, and for many months since then.
We work in a central london research lab, and found ourselves close by the bus and russel square bombings on that day. Both this colleague and I were in the lab at about 9 am, when we heard about the 'incidents' on the radio. 'bummer!' we think, assuming this is yet another london undergound colossal failure, and thinking of our friends who have to travel in on no doubt crowded and delayed trains. Oh well, let's get back to work. So we kept working. Then we heard a 'boom' from outside. Must be a skip being dropped by incompetent builders we think. again, oh well. back to work. Then we heard on the radio what had actually happened. Cue ashen faces, shocked voices, and all of us in the lab trying to contact friends and colleagues to make sure they are all right.

Twenty minutes or so later, I hear my colleague talking to a mutual friend, going 'oh, it was awful this morning at king's cross, so delayed, I had to walk in eventually'. Strange i think, she was in early today. whatever.

an hour or so later, our boss is in the lab. deluded colleague is now saying 'of course, i heard the bang, and felt dust being sprayed out of the tunnel, and just ran away. now i realise it was a bomb - scary!' I was a bit confused, as i was talking to her in our lab when the bomb on the picadilly line train went off. neither of us was in a tube station...

Then at lunch i heard her telling someone 'oh, thank god i wasn't in the bombers carriage, it was so scary walking down the tunnel though, thank god i had clean clothes with me to change into, i was so covered in dust!' I had to query this. 'but you were in the lab when the bomb went off?!'
'oh, when the TUBE bomb went off, but I had to run away from the BUS.'
me: 'wha?! we were talking to eachother when the bus went up, we heard it!'
her: 'yes, but look at this cut on my hand, that was from the bus shrapnel!'
me: 'oh FFS'.


More recently, i have heard her telling people that she was on a train that blew up in IRA times, in a pub that some nailbomber attacked when that went off, in new york on 11th september 2001, in madrid etc etc.
if this is the case, then maybe i should publish her travel plans from now on to prevent more deaths - she is clearly bad luck...

I'm just not sure what she gains from this fantasy world, apart from shellshock and breathing problems. weird.

Apologies for length, everytime she lies, it gets bigger.

* this is one excuse not used so far. we have a sweepstake going for its first use...
** maybe not that zelig-y, but i'm young, and don't really know any other way to describe it. sorry :-)
( ascorbate, Thu 29 Nov 2007, 13:13, 1 reply)

I worked with one of those
Her schtick was hearing some story on the car radio on her way to work and then placing herself in the story somehow.

Road accidents nearly always had her as a witness - no matter how far off her usual route or hour of the day.

If there was a member of the public, on a phone-in show for example, she'd either claim to know/be related to the person or else claim the story as her own. "I was once mugged by a bloke dressed as Santa Claus." Really? I heard about a case the other day where that happened to someone. "Well, in my case he tried to knife me." Oh, you heard about the more recent case then? "No."
(Fanta Menace Is tall enough to see over the fence, Thu 29 Nov 2007, 16:28, closed)