'Your Smeg RBG bathroom sensor has detected undigested breakfast material. Please remit proof of your medical condition to avoid breach of contract. Get well soon!'

Irradiation did more than keep the RBG's cereals fresh and sterile, it made them easy to track. Tristan sank to his knees and stared long at the strobing sensor peeping from his s-bend. Suddenly it all seemed too much. What was poverty, compared to this hell? In a year or two he'd be back in the black. He'd had enough.

Riding in the office elevator he felt a faint stirring in his guts. His body seemed to be affirming that his decision, however painful, was the right one. The door dinged open and he exited with a faint smile - straight into a phalanx of manic colleagues.

'He's here; he's not sick! Wooo hooo! We're in the money! We're in the money!'

Tristan's image stared from every terminal, a crimson 'WARNING ISSUED' plastered across his Smeg file. The Copywriter began an exponential conga line and Tristan choked as Danni sashayed past - a hairy pair of sales hands at her supple hips.

For dinner, Tristan fished one Froot Loop at a time from his toilet, rinsed it in a bowl of vodka and washed it down with more.

**********

Mountain dawns and ocean sunsets swept unheeded past Tristan's picture windows. The odds of Froot Loops were now so titanic, the metrics monitor expressed them as a formula.

In return for a month's free consumables, Tristan had allowed Smeg to run an article on his freakish statistical experience. Now he spent his evenings bitterly declining invitations from chat rooms. Smeg's home page had even begun scrolling up to the minute data and commentary on his progress.

At work the mood was hostile. It was almost Christmas and Tristan's colleagues were sweating on their windfall. Their premature jubilation had soured to resentment at his stubbornness. Surely it was only a matter of time.

To be continued...