A light air of anxiety filled the asylum-white maze of cubicles of Normans workplace. It was past lunchtime and Normans report wasn’t yet complete.

“How could I be so careless?”, thought Norman. He pressed on and managed to finish a half hour before it was due.

Norman sighed in relief, but was upset with himself. He usually finishes his work at least an hour early.

In a rush, he sends the report to his boss via an email attachment. He was in such a hurry that he didn’t proofread his work.

A ping of anxiety hit Norman when he realised this. He began going over his work. It was excellent. It was correct, yet something was still wrong. Norman looked closer. The ligaments were missing from the text. Norman paused, and then it dawned upon him that he wasn’t using his font of choice! Panic washed over him as he realised that he didn’t type his document in FreeSerif, as per his own quality standards, he typed it in Arial, a sans serif font!

“How could I be so careless?” Norman half-wispered outloud. He clicked on the dropdown menu. It then dawned upon him that not only did he accidentally send his report in Arial, he sent it in Arial Mono. “I would never even think about typesetting a document in a monospace font!” gasped Norman. “What kind of circus will my boss think I’m running?”

Norman thought about how this could be possible. He then recalled that before lunchtime, he let Dan use his computer so he could print something. His computer was having print issues and Ted from IT was busy fixing a laptop for a very angry company vice president. Norman didn’t care much for Dans chiq, contemporary style. He shuttered. He then remembered the email that Ted sent to everyone in the office about not letting anyone use your computer for any reason. It then dawned upon Norman that mishaps like this were exactly what that email was warning against.

“How could I be so careless?” said Norman to himself, in an almost shameful tone.

Norman sat back down in his chair. He stood up without realizing it. Norman was shaken. “Norman?” Lisa’s voice had startled him. He turns towards her. She’s not her typical, always smiling self. She looked rather disappointed. “How could you be so careless?”

Before Norman could reply, the sound of a loud buzz startled him. The world began to melt away as he awoke in his bed in a cold sweat to the sound of his alarm clock.

He turned of the alarm and sat up in his bed. Norman always woke up at least two minutes before his alarm goes off. He began to recount his dream to the best of his memory and thought to himself how it was possible that his mind could produce such a terrifying dream.

“That’s it.” said Norman with a tone of finality. “This is the last time I drink camomile tea within two hours before bedtime!” declared Norman. “How could I be so careless?”

“Meow”, said Norman.