I was recently at the Three Lions Pub when I met Marissa Naheed, a very friendly volunteer there who didn’t mind being interviewed.
Let me give you a bit of background on this. When I first teleported in as a fresh wet behind the collar newbie, the Three Lions Pub was one of the first places I tried out. That was after I managed to get through the door, without walking through it, or a chair or a person, and well let’s face it, actually looking like an authentic drunk! And for once, I was in the right place. But unfortunately, I hadn’t reckoned with the dance mat. At this point, I was unaware of the option in the tool’s bar that says, ‘Stop all animations’, so I blithely clicked on the mat and animated myself, only to find that I couldn’t stop dancing.
Some people would have stayed calm in that situation; I am not one of them. So logically, I thought, ‘if I come out of the dance area maybe I’ll just like, stop dancing?’ No such bladdy luck! Well, there I was making a berk of myself as usual, and getting quite a bit of attention, especially from the Americans who saw me rocking around outside the pub and shouted ‘Hey go Goldilocks go!’ at me. Shortly after this, I crashed head long into an inconveniently placed phone booth, but that didn’t stop me dancing, alas no. Needless to say, I eventually figured that if I clicked back on the mat I could stop dancing.
The ignominy of it all, you would thing I would never have darkened the place’s doors again after that, but I did. You see the people there are so friendly. Phil the owner invited me back again and I also made a friend of Marissa Naheed who kindly gave me an interview for this article.
Marissa has been a volunteer helper for about a year now and she told me about some of the pranks that the staff get up to, what she told me put my dancing debut in the shade, for instance, there’s this bloke called Johnnie that does a ballet dance in a jester’s hat in the bar room, and apparently, on another occasion, he dressed up as a pizza and danced with her sister.
‘Very tasty,’ I remarked, causing her to giggle.‘Another time, I dressed up as the Pink Panther and wore Groucho Marx glasses, she said offering me a photograph which I gladly accepted.
‘What else do you get up to?’ I asked
‘Well, one day we fumigated the pub.’ She replied.
‘Like how do you fumigate a virtual pub?’ I asked, nearly falling off my bar stool with curiosity.
‘Well, you put up boards and let off a green particle emitter.’
‘Really, it’s that simple?’ I comment. Wondering whether to let one off at the office, better not, Dana would probably kill me!
‘So what exactly were you trying to fumigate?’ I asked.She answers that it was to get rid of the virtual cockroaches.
‘Oom, I bet that went down like a wet bomb!’ I think, but do not say.
‘We try to make people welcome here.’ She tells me.
‘But no cockroaches?’ I think, but do not say.
Marissa informs me that they are currently building a new resident’s centre for newbies, ie: people like me and other unfortunates. I tell her that I will come and check it out when it’s ready and she kindly offers me her friendship, which I gratefully accept. I need all the friends I can get.
Article Contributed by Amelia Lutrova
