Pardon?

“Did you have a good break?” I asked a colleague as she held a door open for me after a meeting yesterday.

“Yes, thank you, I finally got a merkin!” she replied enthusiastically.

A terrifyingly graphic image flashed through my mind, causing the cookie bite cortex to spring immediately into ‘does not compute‘ mode. Time stood still as a lightning speed internal dialogue took place.

“Did she just say merkin? A pubic wig? Surely not…you wouldn’t admit to that sort of thing to someone you barely knew at work…especially me. No. It must be something that sounds like merkin, and to do with holidays…hmmm…gherkin? No, that’s even more unlikely than merkin…last thing you’d want on a holiday… okay, I give up. God, no wonder my concentration is terrible these days.”

“Sorry,” I said, leaning closer, “I didn’t quite catch that, you got a what?”

It was my colleague’s turn to look puzzled for a second.

“No”, she said, “I finally got to Ardnamurchan, the beaches were just beautiful.”

“That’s great!” I said with a huge sigh of relief.