Meandering the car cautiously through the airport mist and her internal pharmaceutical fog, the Cow located the eNyanga turnoff and thought excitedly, a Quest! She'd always enjoyed those - at least, in their early DOS incarnations, like King's Quest and Dragon and Castle. The modern RPGs were all a bit too much like work; Su Doku was far better for generating instant Beta when you needed it.
The worst thing about RPGs though, was choosing one of the defined characters to play. The Cow always preferred to invent her own personae, changing or casting off as required, and having to put on something so closely prescribed and defined by someone else felt as restrictive as joining a political party.
Which raised the question: who was whom?
It was a little too easy to suggest Andrew as Gandalf the Grey, with his trusty Renault Shadowfax; Gandalf lacked the irony and subtlety... though there had been the prerequisite encounter with the Balrog, occasioned by Tony's delayed reappearance one day. The Cow put Andrew's character assignation on hold, and turned to the others.
Tony as Frodo? He had the big blue eyes, but somehow it was less easy to picture him in a role that was all silent emoting and hairy feet. And GPS - Legolas? Boromir? The silent, brooding Aragorn? This was far too difficult.
The Cow, of course, wanted to be Saruman the White, simply because he was the coolest character and was played in the movies by the coolest actor, but he wasn't part of the Fellowship. Of the Fellowship itself... Pippin, perhaps? He, at least, had an anarchic streak to offset all that toussled hair, and a Caledonian accent to make him a little more interesting.
And the rest of the cast - the Ents, the Uruk-hai, the Riders of Rohan... and who was Gollum???
This was all becoming a little too much for the Cow's febrile imagination. "Why don't you open it for suggestions?" offered Gramsci. "Some interesting possibilities might emerge..."
'lá ilyë yantë ranya nar vanwë'?
Which translates as,
'not all those who wander are lost'?
Perfectly fitting for a GPS, don't you think?"
Gramsci - wisely - took cover under the nearest keyboard.