A mystery parcel arrives. And it isn't from a nutter, for once.

"Bomb delivery," says Greg, first thing this morning, as he walks into the office bearing a large brown cardboard box.

He dumps it on my desk, then adds,

"Luckily, it's for you, not me – so just wait a sec, while I retire to a safe distance. Then open it."

I take no notice, not because I'm brave (or stupid), but because the parcel is clearly addressed to my alter ego. The one who writes the books.

Here's what I found inside. Greg says the fedora suits him best, but it really doesn't. His head's even more enormous than mine.

Posh Golf, Get-Togethers, And The Sheer Hell Known As Small Talk.

Why do I complain about having no social life? Why? Just be careful what you wish for, that's all I can say.

"Don't forget tonight's fancy dress," says Max, while we're eating breakfast.

"What?" I say. "Fancy dress? Since when?"

Honestly, sometimes I'm sure he's got me well-insured and is trying to kill me off - though I suppose he wouldn't have attempted the Heimlich Manoeuvre if that was really the case. (Note to self: watch paranoia levels.)

Anyway, once I've finished choking on my toast, Max explains that Celia, his colleague, has decided that tonight's "little get-together" is to be themed. For God's sake.

"So what's the theme, then?" I say. "It'd better be something simple, seeing as you've left it until now to tell me about it."

"Um, no," he says. "Which is sort of why I couldn't bring myself to tell you. It's 'posh golf'."

Posh golf? What the hell is that? I suspect I become slightly hysterical at this point but, once I've stopped hyperventilating, Max admits that he has no idea what the stupid theme means either. Then he says that he's just going to to wear his suit, on the grounds that that's as posh as he ever gets.

"Oh, and we have to bring a hamper of food, as well," he says. "So we can have an indoor picnic, apparently."

I look at him as if he has lost his mind, before tearing upstairs and rifling through my wardrobe, which turns out, as expected, to contain no golf-related clothing whatsoever.

When my search area widens to encompass Josh's room, I do find an old fedora hat - which Max decides to appropriate - but, unsurprisingly, there's nothing to indicate that teenage boys have any more of a plus-four fetish than do their parents.

Meanwhile, Max has discovered, after a visit to the loft, that we don't possess anything that could pass for a hamper, either - which I could have told him if he'd asked.

Preparations are thus not going well at all, but Max won't hear of it when I suggest we tell Celia that we've suddenly gone down with the Winter Vomiting bug, not even when I point out that then we could stay in and watch The Killing on BBC4 instead - which would be a lot more fun, as far as I'm concerned. He says we have no option but to go, as this sort of socialising is unofficially required as part of his job.

So, after I've had several nervous breakdowns and have done more than my fair share of swearing, we make our way to Celia's dressed as Coco Chanel and an unidentified gangster - who is carrying a picnic in a Tesco carrier bag and doesn't even have a gun. This last may be a good thing, given that my mood is best described as murderous.

"I think we've missed the golf bit out completely," I say, as the taxi turns into Celia's road, but Max just shrugs as if it's of no consequence, which may be because he already knows we won't be the only ones. I just wish he'd told me about his bloody premonition, before I turned myself into a pearl-clad dog's dinner.

Half the guests haven't bothered to dress up at all, and even the couple who've made the most effort have missed the mark, unless they know something about golfers that I don't. They've come as a cowboy and the owner of the best little whorehouse in Northwick.

"Nice reference to Tiger Woods," says Max, who is scarily good at small talk, and obviously knows more about both golf and men's leisure activities than I do.

"Mmm," I say.

This scintillating comment is about as good as my contribution to the conversation gets. God, chit-chat is boring. And who the hell are these people? I ask Max, who says they're mainly clients, or people who work for companies related to his.

"The Beales brothers seem fascinating conversationalists, all of a sudden," I say. "I'd even be happy to see Steve Ellington walk in."

"Shut up,"  says Max, sotto voce. "This is how the cream of Northwick society amuses itself. Go and have another cigarette if you can't stand it."

I do as he suggests, and don't think anyone notices that I spend the rest of the evening in Celia's back garden but, even so, I'm pretty relieved when there's a beep outside, and Max comes to the back door to tell me that our taxi is here.

I thank Celia, (though I don't think I'm as enthusiastic about her husband's plus-fours as she would have liked), and then I attempt to do some air-kissing. Max is very good at it, and gets round all the female guests at lightning speed, but I really shouldn't have moved in to kiss the woman from the Chicken Ranch while talking at the same time.

"For God's sake, Mol," says Max, as he bundles me into the taxi. "Are you choking again?"

"Feather boa," I say. "Inhaled. Be all right in a minute."

The driver asks if I'm going to be sick, and has to be reassured that I've only had three G&Ts.

"Bit of a poor night, was it, then?" he says.

"Yes," I say. "All posh golf, Pimms, and talking about nothing. How's yours been?"

Max says I never know when to ask questions and when not to - but, honestly, the poor, poor taxi driver. It turns out that he had an awful experience with some students a few weeks ago, when he was driving them home from a night-club.

They were really drunk and made him drive them miles out of Northwick, claiming that they lived in one of the satellite villages.

"Then I felt a gun in my back, and one of them said, 'Give us all your money, now,'" he says. "I thought I was a goner."

"Oh, my God," I say. "What on earth happened then?"

"The guy started laughing, and said it was a joke. That he'd only stuck his finger between my shoulder blades. 'For a laugh,' he said it was."

Now the driver sounds as if he's the one who's choking, so I wait without saying anything. Small talk's not appropriate in every situation, after all. Then he blows his nose, clears his throat and continues as if he hadn't even paused for breath:

"Except it wasn't funny, was it?" he says. "This is the first night I've worked since then and, to be honest, I'm not at all sure I can handle it any more. Not everyone behaves like you people, and the money's not so good that it feels worth the risk of trying to handle the ones who don't."

Max leaves a big tip, which we can't afford, but he doesn't say much when we let ourselves into the house. He just goes straight to bed, leaving me downstairs, sitting on the sofa and thinking. Hard.

Why did I find the taxi driver more interesting, and easier to relate to than any of Max's colleagues? And why can't I do bloody small talk any more? I am obviously drawn to misery, and doomed to stay a caseworker forever.

Brothers in Arms, Creative Darts, and Connie's Take On Statistics

Igor comes in to the office first thing. Again. He wants The Boss to get him a job as a postman, and brings bribes - sorry, I mean gifts. Three bottles of Vodka, and a fedora hat the same as his own. The Boss is vocal in his thanks for the alcohol, but seems less sure about the hat. He sneaks it onto my desk behind a pile of filing when Igor suggests they go and have "breakfast-lunch" together. I wait until Andrew thinks he's got away with it, and is about to go out of the door, then I run after him and say,

"Don't forget your hat!"

"Oh, don't worry, Molly. I'll be back to get it later." The Boss tries to walk on, but Igor's having none of it. He takes the hat from my hand, crams it onto Andrew's head, and says,

"There, my friend. Now we look like the brothers we are - in our hearts."

"You look more like the bloody Chuckle Brothers to me," says Greg, but they've already gone.

I hang out of the window to watch them walk along the street below. They look ridiculous. Igor simply because he's Igor, and The Boss because he's in his usual crumpled outfit of mismatched trousers and jacket, topped with the ludicrous hat. He seems to be trying to lag behind Igor, and keeps taking sneaky sidelong glances into the shop windows, as if to confirm what he already knows: that he looks a total prat. This is going to be a good day.

And so it proves to be. Only an average number of abusive phone-calls, just one threatening message left on the answer-phone, and less than the usual number of spam emails too. Greg and I power through our work, and even manage a game of darts at lunchtime. Greg gets a bullseye several times, so we have to replace the photo of Andrew with a new one, as his nose has been obliterated by the holes. I am more artistic than Greg, and manage to position a feather dart earring on each of Andrew's ears. They'd look great with the hat.

Now I come to think of it, Igor could prove to be a real bonus during the rest of Recess. Mid-afternoon, The Boss phones and says,

"Everything okay there?" He sounds knackered.

"Yes, thanks," I say. "Where are you? You've got that meeting here in an hour."

"Is there any way we could cancel it? I feel rather worn out and think I might work from home for the rest of the day. Igor was a bit much."

"Well, the chairman of the Mental Health Trust will no doubt be distraught to miss the sight of you in your lovely new hat," I say. "But I suppose I can cancel, if you insist."

"Do that, then," Andrew says. "If you can manage without me, that is."

"Oh, I think we can," I say."So you won't be back at all today?"

"No," says The Boss, almost in a whimper. "Bye, then. See you tomorrow."

I put the phone down and punch the air, while Greg whoops and does his version of Igor's Russian dance. This reminds me of my nightmare so I make him stop.

I actually finish work on time, and am really glad to get home. Connie arrives shortly after I do - now that she has finally grasped the concept of flexi-time, this happens more often. We sit down to watch the news together, then she says,

"Mum?"

"Yes, Con?"

"Political question."

"Con, it's very nice of you to take an interest, but you really don't have to."

"No, I am interested. It's about these benefit fraud figures they keep quoting on the news."

"Oh, yes?"

"Well, if they know exactly how much money benefit fraud costs the taxpayer, then doesn't that mean that they must know who's committing the frauds and how much they're each getting away with?"

"Er - I have no idea. I've never thought of it like that before." I say. Good point. How do they know?

"Well, either they know about it, in which case why don't they just do something about it - and tax fraud too - or they don't know. In which case they must just be guessing and pretending they aren't. Mustn't they?" Sometimes it takes Connie's highly-literal brain to see what normal people's don't.

But I'm too relaxed after today to be capable of deep thought. Or even the shallow kind.

"Well, then they must be guessing, Con. After all, they've pretty much had to do that about the size of the population for the last God knows how many years."

"Well, they shouldn't present it as fact, then - should they?" says Connie. "They should call it a guesstimate."

I must get her a copy of that brilliant old book on how to lie with statistics. In case she ever wants to go into politics.