There was only ever one Girl in Peter-Bowman's life. There were many girls of course, but only one ever worthy of capitalisation. Women played no part in Peter-Bowman's life. They tended to scare him with talks of long term mortgages and life time investment strategies. Money in general actually. Money, money, money. And what they thought of as commitment, which seemed to involve locking yourself up in some sort of asylum far more that it involved living a dream together. They had forgotten their dreams and chosen life instead. Which was a pity, in Peter-Bowman's opinion, but there seemed to be little way of stopping it. He couldn't even blame feminism, as it appeared that feminism was a project that had failed at some stage in the 1970's. It seemed to have created a situation in which women were required to be women rather than just being themselves. Peter-Bowman was unsure exactly what this was meant to achieve, but it seemed to mean that women didn't like it when he suggested they eat McDonalds' Happy Meals instead of going to an expensive restaurant of some variety. Peter-Bowman could easily afford an expensive restaurant. But why? Expensive restaurants were rarely very fun. Except when the waiter caught fire and leapt into the fish tank. Such incidences were just not common enough to accurately mirror Peter-Bowman's experience of life. McDonalds provided a much better simulacrum for Peter-Bowman to enjoy. The food tasted good but was horrendously bad for him, and should only be eaten when extremely drunk. The lights were too bright. Such details seemed to equally apply to life. Peter-Bowman could not understand why women wanted to hide from an accurate depiction of life in a dimly lit restaurant. They seemed to have some idea that dimly lit restaurants were romantic, without actually understanding that romance could just as easily occur in a crowded McDonalds and had far more to do with love than the surrounding ambiance. It was largely a matter of assumptions. You could easily assume that dimly lit restaurants were a vital part of any romantic encounter, but this would render you senseless to the romance involved in discovering the beautiful girl who had already kept you waiting to use the phone in the public phone box for three and a half hours was smiling at you. Lending her forty cents to make another call - that was what romance was all about, according to Peter-Bowman. If you needed a dimly lit restaurant to feel romantic, then you had missed the whole point and should probably go home and eat left overs. Peter-Bowman felt that left overs were mind boggling romantic and could not understand why so few women agreed with him. It occurred to him that he wasn't actually needed for the romantic experience as desired by women. A dimly lit restaurant and some sort of semi intelligent robot would do the job just fine, so long as the robot knew how to blow out candles. Peter-Bowman found the whole thing incredibly odd. This is why Peter-Bowman preferred girls.

Girls didn't seem to have a hang up about dimly lit restaurants and could have just as good a time in McDonalds as in an establishment with a silly French name. There was a certain honesty to this approach that Peter-Bowman found refreshing. Essentially he was just glad that they preferred to see a movie and grab a Big Mac then discussions about the future of the relationship. The future of the relationship, Peter-Bowman had long ago decided, was something that would work out far better if they stopped talking about it and just did it. Talking was never very useful in Peter-Bowman's mind. It got in the way of dreaming. Dreaming was how he usually referee to what other people seemed to think of as living, because what they were doing had very little to do with life, in Peter-Bowman's opinion. The rest of the world seemed to be largely concerned with dying really. Peter-Bowman could come up with no other explanation for why everybody else was so concerned with what would happen in the next hour that they forgot to pay attention to what was happening in that particular second. He was never one to advise people to smell the roses, as he had heard that some people were allergic to roses and an allergic reaction would probably have dire consequences. Instead, he often stood in the middle of his phone box and began screaming, just to see what would happen. His reasoning was that if nobody stopped to work out why somebody was standing in a phone box screaming, the world was probably doomed to be eaten by some sort of mutated lobster. After several days of such experimentation, Peter-Bowman despaired for the world and began screaming in earnest. Then the Girl arrived.

'Hello', said the Girl. 'You appear to be standing in a phone box and screaming quite loudly.'

'Yes. I am', replied Peter-Bowman. 'I didn't think anybody had noticed.' He was so astonished at the approach of the girl that he had to take some time ensuring that his Garfields were correctly arranged before turning to face her. A strange sensation began in his right second toe that suggested that this encounter was of the type that a proper arrangement of Garfields could be critical. Having satisfied himself that all was well, Peter-Bowman turned to face the Girl.

The Girl looked him over. 'Are you mad? It's just that most people would use the phone when in a phone box. To scream into, I mean. You haven't even picked it up.' The Girl was of course stunningly beautiful. It will make things easier at this point if you imagine her looks for yourself. As whatever appears stunningly beautiful to you. I could describe her for you, but that would just lead to you finding flaws in her appearance. 'Brown hair?' you might say. 'The only beautiful hair is orange. And it's too long and seems a bit wispy to me. And her eyes look a bit shifty to me. You can't seriously find her attractive?' You see the problem. I could argue that the Girl was stunningly beautiful to Peter-Bowman, no matter your own personal opinion, but that would take too long and would probably annoy you. It's of little importance at any rate. Peter-Bowman is never allowed to refer to the Girl as his girlfriend. She is just somebody who noticed that he was screaming and came over to (sorry, Peter-Bowman is tugging at my sleeve.

'What are you saying? I'm in love with this Girl, you know.' Peter-Bowman appears to be somewhat agitated at this point.

'Yes. Sorry. She's about to dismiss you as a lunatic and walk away. I'm afraid she will remain as the one true Girl, the one you'll always be looking for. It's a bit of a bastard, I admit, but there it is.'

It seems that Peter-Bowman has been made speechless by this revelation. I shall have to find something for him to say. How does this sound?

'You utter, utter. utter cruel pig of a bastard! x xxx xx x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'

What do you think? Did I get that right? He seems to be somewhat upset. I'm not sure if this quite gets to the centre of the matter. You could try cross referencing it with Peter-Bowman's diary if you like. That might help.) make sure that he wasn't about to break the phone in any way. She is actually an employee of the phone company.

The stunningly beautiful Girl continues to talk. 'We do rather discourage screaming in phone boxes actually. It tends to frighten away potential customers you see.'

'Yes'. All of a sudden Peter-Bowman has become rather quiet. He carefully checks that his Garfields haven't slipped loose. They haven't. All is in place. For some reason this is of little help.

'Anyway, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to keep the screaming to a minimum. Otherwise you're going to have to move out.' The Girl is clearly rather bored at this procedure by now. There's been a lot of screaming in phone boxes lately. 'Just behave yourself a bit better, OK?'

Peter-Bowman nods, and the Girl walks on to the next screaming phone box. Peter-Bowman gradually realises that the Girl was a woman, and there's nothing he could do about that.

This is the most romantic encounter that Peter-Bowman ever has.