Amazing Fortune At Bus Stop!

Dear Dame Wotta Tripp,
For quite some time I have been the subject of alien abduction. Usually it takes place while I am waiting at the bus stop.

A Turkish man with a big walrus mustache draws up on a green tandem racing bicycle, places me on the rear saddle, and pedals off at tremendous speed out of the town and into the countryside, and down a long trail into the heart of the forest, where he carries me into a tiny cottage with diamond windows and a thatched roof.

I am placed on a chair at the table where I am forced to eat delicious sandwiches with the crusts removed, pastries, jellies, trifle, seasonal fresh fruit, and am made to drink at least two cups of five-minute tea out of fine china. Then I remember nothing more until I find myself back at the bus stop, without any apparent time lapse.

What can all this mean? I can't take it much longer.
Marina.


Dear Marina,
I do not wish to upset you further than my minimum requirements, you foolish child, but it should be obvious even to one of average stunted intelligence exactly what is occurring here.
I find it difficult to believe the young lady who wrote the coherent letter above could also be so poorly educated in such very basic ways. Did you perhaps grow up in a secluded institution? I sincerely hope you haven’t been indoctrinated into the decadent ways of religion. It takes some people years to undo the damage and learn to think for themselves once more.

My job, however, is not to criticize overly, but to enlighten where appropriate.

You have received a genuine proposal of marriage from the world of Faery. This would necessarily include induction into a breeding program, not as a common human wet-nurse, understand, but as a wife.

This is a permanent position that I would advise any mortal to take, if only for the experience, and if you follow the simple rules you will not only survive but prosper, and your offspring after you.

Although I would advise you to accept this offer anyhow, in your case you have no decision left to make as you have accepted food and eaten it whilst visiting.

To accept food in the Otherworld usually results in a binding contract in which you have no longer any choice. You have not only accepted food but apparently been gorging down huge binful’s of the stuff indiscriminately. They must be amazed at your capacity for rapaciously putting away the comestibles. It is alarming.

The following list represents just a few of the benefits a marriage of this type brings:

• Secure position (* as long as no taboos are broken)
• Prime real estate in enchanted situations (*)
• An inordinately long life (*)
• Perfect health (*)
• Riches, luxuries and fantastic apparel (*)
• Amusements of every conceivable sort (*)
• Good music, all the time (*)
• Excellent catering, as you have described (*)
• Unusual animal companions and cats with six to eight toes on each foot (*)
• Celebrations and feasting with seasonal moves to new quarters (*)
• Excitement and unusual hunting opportunities (*)
• A fascinating partner (*)
• The opportunity to forge better relations between humans and faeries (*)

What more could a girl want? These terms seem very reasonable to me, and as in your particular case you have little choice.
I suggest you say goodbye to your family (that includes any husbands you may have as all contracts made with other mortals are now null and void) and prepare to enjoy! You very lucky girl!
You don’t need to pack, everything will be provided, and you may occasionally catch glimpses of your previous family and friends through the apparatus provided. That can be quite amusing as you watch them searching high and low for you from your new exalted position. If only they knew!

Please let me know how you are getting on. You may deliver your message to me in a variety of manners, including via wild honey bee, nightjar or blackbird.

Next time you visit, simply look up at the Faery Lord who has selected you (possibly in indiscriminate haste and without checking your background thoroughly) while having tea, thank him for his overwhelmingly kind attention, and ask him for the privilege of baring his Faery children. You will not have to return home again, as long as no taboos are broken. If this does occur, you will find yourself back home. You will barely have time to recognize how unfamiliar the surroundings are ( several hundred years may have passed) before you crumble to dust. Not a bad way to go, altogether.

Good Fortune,
Wotta Tripp!