Hi Karen,

This is Tim Bloom, the new guy. Calling because I won’t be able to make it into the office today. I know today was supposed to be my first day, and I don’t want to make a bad first impression, but I’m pretty under the weather and I think I should probably just sleep this one off.

I’d say this is some kind of viral thing I’ve got. My head feels weird, and I’m also having trouble seeing, but maybe that’s because of all the crying. Also I’ve been crying on and off almost all weekend… I think that must be part of this virus I have. Have you heard of this? I just hope it’s not going around the office!

It’s funny, and I think you’ll appreciate this; I was feeling fine until Friday night - that’s when I had this dream about that lady in the cubicle next to yours, Christine if memory serves. In the dream, she and I decided to adopt a Chinese baby together – random right? Then at some point you were there too, except you were my dog Jesse that was run over by a truck when I was six, but you were also a prostitute – it made sense in the dream. So we had this epic threesome, and when we finished we went and adopted the Chinese baby. Wait, no it was Korean!

Here’s where this starts to get interesting. After this dream, I wake up in my car with some baby that I’ve apparently kidnapped in my sleep. At first I panicked, but then it occurred to me – maybe this is the dream, and that other part with the threesome was real, you know? And now I just need to wake up, but I can’t and maybe that’s what the crying is about. Plus this baby is starting to smell.

So, long story short, I’m just trying to sort out what’s reality and what’s not - that kinda stuff. Again, I’m thinking this is definitely a virus I caught. Maybe it’s SARS? In any case, sorry for the long voicemail! Hopefully I’ll be feeling better soon and can make it in later today.