Phraseotomy: the Party Game

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 An actual story from the Phraseotomy archives where the icons are in bold and the wisp was 'hammock'... or was it 'paying rent'?:

"So last winter, my uncle asked to move into the attic of my parents' house. He claimed it had character but really, he just wanted to be close to the fireplace downstairs without paying rent.

One night, my dad heard this bizarre splashing sound, and he went up expecting a missing roof tile or overflowing header tank. Nope. Uncle had got a kiddie paddling pool in the attic. He was trying to rehabilitate a seal he found injured by the canal. Dad was like, 'bro for the love of broadband, we have internet now! Just Google ‘wildlife services!’

Long story short, Uncle ended up flooding the attic when he tried to fill the pool with the garden hose he snaked in through the window. The whole ceiling sagged like a hammock and we had to call the utility company to come a suck their product back up."

An actual story from the Phraseotomy archives where the icons are in bold and the wisp was 'take it offline'... or was it 'synergy'?:

"We had this remote meeting quarterly review last week and our boss, Janet, logged in with this organigram the size of APAC. She was pointing at process boxes and gesticulating as if 'synergy' is something you can hold in your hands.

Carl from finance was there. He was trying to figure out why the pie chart we submitted has 17% labelled as ‘office snacks’. No one from procurement was there so...we decided to take that one offline. Then I noticed Craig from IT staring blankly out the windows xp like he tracks the arrival of his paycheck by looking for a half moon.

Then the whole videocall system crashes and we get this error message that just says 'you’re not supposed to be here'. Which, honestly, felt like a sign. So we all migrated to the virtual water cooler, muttered about remote work, and agreed to pretend the meeting happened." 

 An actual story from the Phraseotomy archives where the icons are in bold and the wisp was 'kombucha'... or was it 'open mic'?:

"So I’ve been going to this mindfulness club every Wednesday night, right? Super chill vibe. Kombucha, yoga mats and that guy with the top knot who speaks only in metaphors.

Anyway, last week, they (not I) decided to do something a little ‘expressive’ - a kind of artistic, life-sharing open mic. I didn’t come prepared because my dendrochronology competition was sapping up my time that week, so I just improvised a poem about backgammon and personal growth. 

Then things got weird. A guy rolled into the hall on a unicycle, yelled something about civic duty, and slapped a handmade polling station sign on the wall. Apparently he was there to set up for local elections. We gave him the microphone anyway, because it felt more awkward not to. He did an impassioned slam poem about spoiling ballots and then helped himself to kombucha."

An actual story from the Phraseotomy archives where the icons are in bold and the wisp was 'dream destination'... or was it 'tikki hut'?:

"A few years back, I was on this solo trip through Kenya, my dream destination, and decided on a whim to join a night-time reef diving tour off the coast. I know, reefs aren't exactly what you expect on a safari trip, but I had this lightbulb moment after a glass of tikki hut mango rum and just went for it.

Anyway, I’m underwater and I swear I see a shadow move that’s way too big to be a fish. I panic, shoot up too fast, and next thing I know I’m tangled in this guide rope that's meant to lead us back to the boat.

When I finally get pulled into the boat gasping, the air hostess from my flight earlier that week is standing at the helm. She's apparently mates with the dive coordinator. She just looks at me and goes, 'Neck pillow boy!?' - that's another story.

Anyway I spent the rest of the trip on land, watching elephants and having a perpetual salt water aftertaste."

An actual story from the Phraseotomy archives where the icons are in bold and the wisp was 'scratching noise'... or was it 'halloween'?:

"So I was housesitting for my cousin, right? He's one of those biotechnicians with bad eye contact who is quite quick to insist he's not crazy, which is already a yellow flag.

First night, I hear this scratching noise coming from his lab. I go to check it out, and I find a massive fishbowl in the corner; but instead of fish, it’s got an active zombie bobbing around like it’s judging me. I convinced myself it’s a Halloween prop... until it winked. I heard a 'ting' sound then the bowl exploded and the zombie falls out to the floor, regains composure and starts pursuing me.

Naturally, I grab the first thing I see, some kind of rusty sawblade, and try to swing it but it's pointless. The damn thing lunges at me, knocking over cuz's experimental samples, revealing a sign on a desk saying 'Please don’t touch the specimens' with a bloody knife sticking out of it. Now I could rekill the zombie but soon realised the zombie was my cousin. I couldn't bring myself to end him so I just grabbed the knife and clobbered myself to death with it."

An actual story from the Phraseotomy archives where the icons are in bold and the wisp was 'hyperdrive'... or was it 'orbital relay?:

"So I mentioned that I was stationed on Orbital Relay Theta-6, right? One solar cycle I'd just finished the night shift which was hard because the nights are 16 earth hours long. I was monitoring teleporter traffic, mostly smugglers and birthday parties, and I’m riding the turbolift down to the rec deck when I get pinged telepathically by Central Command.

Someone’s triggered a level-four hacking alert. Naturally, it’s a known black hat in a SpaceX Mark VII just out of tractor beam range. She’s trying to override the station's AI’s emotional suppression protocols so she can stream sad girl lo-fi music through the ventilation system.

Turns out she's also my ex so I called her and threatened to launch a proton torpedo unless she played Ziggy Stardust. She did as much, but punched her hyperdrive and hopped star system."

 An actual story from the Phraseotomy archives where the icons are in bold and the wisp was 'chalice'... or was it 'pack mule'?:

"So we were deep in the Forest of Gloomroot, just me, an overweight dwarf named Branik, and a tone-deaf bard, Logg, with an expensive lute and zero battle instincts. We’re on a quest to recover the Sacred Frosting Chalice which, everyone knows is useless except for its magical ability to turn anything into a cake version of itself. Branik is invested. Emotionally.

Mid-quest, we’re halfway across a vine-covered ravine when a skeleton archer on the far cliff takes a potshot and nearly hits our pack mule. Branik doesn’t even flinch, just grabs his claymore and charges past Logg, using the rope bridge like a swing, screaming something about ‘gluten free vengeance’.

The archer tries to nock another arrow to stop Logg from busting out a backing track, but it sneezes (no noise, because no lungs, or nose), and the next thing I know, Branik’s buried the sword so deep into the thing’s ribcage it sounds like a portamento xylophone. Stupid archer got his just desserts, and by the end of the quest, we just got dessert."

An actual story from the Phraseotomy archives where the icons are in bold and the wisp was 'hen party'... or was it 'blindfold'?:

"So I was at this very unconventional hen party in Berlin, like, one of those events where the line between entertainment and audience participation gets deliberately blurry...and sticky.

It was being held in this bar but there were temporary croupiers there running blackjack and stuff. Then there was this performer, an absolute icon, a local drag queen in a full-latex circus ringleader outfit calling punters up to the roulette table.

I gave it a go and ran out of money pretty quickly but the queen suggested I could bet one last time if I let her flog me. 2 minutes later I’m blindfolded, giggling uncontrollably because someone’s blowing bubbles at my face like it's a sensory experience thing. The kind of thing you can only explain using shrooms or therapy.

Anyway I might have been hitting on the queen too hard because her boyfriend had to crowbar me off her. Honestly, 8/10 night. Would RSVP again."