Open Day
Created | Updated Dec 23, 2005
Vicky Dee wrapped up another show and called up the station's message board on her monitor. What was the latest minor point the board's regulars had found to criticise her on? She looked at the TDBW thread, the acronym stood for That Damn Bloody Woman, a coded name for her they had adopted to avoid the Mods, but everything was quiet today. Not a single post demanding her dismissal. Where were they all?
As she walked through the corridors on her way out, the station's star presenter noticed an odd looking assortment of people being lead around the Five Lite offices.
"Hey, Jim, what's happening?" asked Vicky, using the probing skills she had honed hosting a thousand phone-ins.
"It's our Open Day, Vicky," Jim explained. "We've invited all the regular posters from the message board to spend the morning at their favourite station."
"Interesting," murmured Vicky, and casually enquired what was next on their itinerary.
"Sam's showing them to hospitality and then they'll be off home."
"Well, I must be, too," said Vicky. "Cheers for that, Jim."
Vicky continued down the corridor, but after checking Jim was no longer around doubled back and headed along another route sign posted to hospitality.
The group was sat around a large table enjoying a specially prepared buffet of sandwiches, bought from the canteen by a junior runner, a couple of packets of Twiglets, and a case of champagne left over from Senior Management's last meeting. They had all put on their Five Lite sweatshirts, baseball caps and had their name tags with their message board monikers proudly attached to their chests.
"South East Girl", "Corrie", "Uncle Rouble", "Sardinia", "Moggster". Vicky slipped into the room unnoticed and looked around the table, silently putting names to the faces of all her nemeses, then locked the door behind her with an ominous clunk and the room fell silent
"Let me show you my Radio Personality of the Year Award," she said, reaching into her handbag for the blunt object.
A week later and the subject up for discussion on the morning phone-in was missing persons. There had been an unusual spate of them and the police were baffled. The only clue was that all the disappeared had been keen internet users, but the police didn't think that was important. So today's topic was Alien Abductions.
As Harry from Stockport confirmed he had seen tentacled creatures from another planet kidnapping Shergar and Kate from Swansea recounted witnessing a similar fate for Lord Lucan, Vicky took a quick look at the message board to see if there were any complaints; but there were no protests, no accusations of dumbing-down, no posts at all, in fact, except for someone called Paul making an enquiry about a presenter's hair length.
Everything was quiet, as it had been all week. As it was going to be from now on, thought Vicky with a smile.
