spreadsheet's gone all wobbly

The air in the office of 'Jenkins & Co. Paper Goods' was thick with the faint smell of lukewarm tea and the quiet hum of a Windows 95 desktop. Gary, a man whose beige cardigan was a testament to his unwavering commitment to the mundane, leaned over his cubicle wall.

"Alright, Brenda," he said, his voice a low, conspiratorial mumble. "Bit of a pickle, that."

Brenda, a woman who treated every task with the grim determination of a wartime nurse, didn't look up from her stack of invoices. "What is it now, Gary? The spreadsheet's gone all wobbly again?"

"No, no, nothing so… digital. It's about… yesterday's chat. I was having a bit of a natter with someone, see? And now, for the life of me, I can't remember what we talked about. It's all gone. Vanished into the ether. Like a fax that's been sent to the wrong department."

Brenda sighed, a sound that could curdle milk. "Gary, you didn't talk to anyone yesterday. You spent twenty minutes staring at the office plant because you thought it looked 'a bit thirsty'."

Gary’s face crumpled in confusion. "Oh. Right. So... no chat at all, then? What about the other thing? The... the cat? What was the cat from yesterday?"

Brenda pinched the bridge of her nose. "You didn't see a cat. You're thinking of that viral video of the cat playing the piano that Kevin from Marketing sent round. Honestly, Gary, half of what you think happened is just something you've seen on the internet."

Gary slowly nodded, the fluffy top of his pen bobbing. "Right. The chat. The cat. All from the internet. Well, that's a relief, I suppose. It's not the first time my brain's gone all... patchy."

Suddenly, his eyes widened, the relief vanishing completely. "Patchy! That's it! The report! The one with the numbers and the graphs! I swore I had it just this morning. I put it right here, next to my mug. The one with the picture of the dog on it, not the one with the silly slogan."

He began to frantically pat down his desk, his panic rising. "It's gone. Vanished! Like a teabag after a long weekend. You don't suppose it's fallen down the back of the filing cabinet, do you? Or maybe Brenda from Accounts has 'borrowed' it again. She's always doing that. Thinks my spreadsheets are her own personal library."

Brenda simply watched him, a quiet observer of the daily comedy.

"Honestly, it's a shambles," Gary muttered to himself, his voice a panicked whisper. "I've looked in 'Documents,' 'My Important Stuff,' and even 'Temporary Mess.' Nothing. Absolutely nothing. It's not in the bin, is it? No, that can't be right. I only deleted that spam email about a lottery win. A likely story."

He let out a defeated groan, the impending dread of facing Mr. Henderson, the office manager with a famously red face, settling in his stomach. Just as he was about to give up entirely, his eye caught something on the corner of his desk.

"Oh, hang on. What's this?" A folder titled 'Misc.' with a single, dusty floppy disk inside. Could this be it? Could this be the final resting place of the most important report of the year? He carefully pulled the disk out and held it up like a priceless artifact. The day's crises were over. For now.