Kate typed frantically at her PC. She was halfway through a complaint to the manufacturers of Choco Wheats – a budget cereal she’d been trying out.

Only this morning, there’d been a problem: she’d poured herself a bowl and discovered a fragment of rock amongst the nuggets of chocolatey badness. Well, she wasn’t having that. She’d flown straight upstairs and fired up her e-mail.

Her fingertips clattered across the keyboard with self-righteous fury.

Dear Customer Services,
My teeth were nearly obliterated this morning. Upon pouring myself a portion of your scrumptious Choco Wheats, I discovered a piece of rubble that I’m certain should not have been there. I checked the ingredients list, but it didn’t make any reference to gravel, pebbles, or the like.

If I’d taken a proper bite, my dental bill would’ve been through the roof. And you know how much trips to the dentist cost these days. I can’t afford a brand-new set of dentures. Can you? Of course you can – you’re a million-dollar cereal manufacturer. So let’s talk figures

She leant back and smiled. This was going well. She was good at this. This was her fifth complaint of the year, and it was only January 2nd.  

She’d amassed hundreds of freebies over the years from poor unsuspecting companies who’d found it easier to buy her off rather than argue with her. A lifetime supply of cocktail sticks. A pallet of pinto beans. She even had a framed apology from Kinder – for selling her an egg with no toy inside. How she’d cried.

On most food labels, it said something along the lines of, “If you’re not entirely happy with this product, please let us know, and we’ll give you a full refund”. But never in a million years did they think anyone would be petty enough to act on it.

But they hadn’t met Kate. Kate had every complaints department in the country on speed dial.

Words cannot express how frustrated I am, she continued. And I’ve had bad dreams ever since, she added, playing the emotional distress card. I keep seeing myself in the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark, being chased out of a cave by a giant rolling boulder.

She attached an image of herself standing next to the offending piece of rock. She was pointing at it with a screwed-up look of outrage. 

Another thing, did you know I have a phobia of stones? I bet you didn’t, did you? When I was six, someone threw one at me in the school playground. Okay, it didn’t injure me in any way, but it might’ve done, and that’s given me a lasting trauma. I still have flashbacks to this day. And what you’ve done to my breakfast this morning has brought it all flooding back.

I’m incandescent with rage. Do you know, I might never eat cereal again? I demand compensation – nay, justice!

And don’t just stick this e-mail in your trash folder. I’ll contact my MP if you don’t do right by me.

She was pumping her fists now and foaming at the mouth.

And I’ll never, ever, ever eat your crummy cereal again. Unless, of course, you give me a freebie, in which case I’ll become a superfan and eat nothing but Choco Wheats for the rest of my days.

She pressed send and folded her arms with satisfaction.

A deafening boom sounded overhead, and chunks of plaster fell from the ceiling.  

“What in blazes!”

She rushed outside, still holding the box of Choco Wheats. She backed away from the house and looked up.

The cereal packet dropped to the ground, leaving her clenched fist hanging mid-air.

A giant smoking meteorite was lodged in the roof. The chimney stack had borne the brunt of the impact, thankfully.

Blimey, she thought. That was a near miss. A fraction out, and she might not have been so lucky.

She looked around, but none of her neighbours were affected. They were happily going about their business – mowing their lawns, trimming their hedges.

She looked up at the meteorite, then opened her hand. The stone didn’t seem quite so big now.

“Bad luck, Kate,” one of her neighbours chuckled. “Life’s a bitch, isn’t it?”

Kate looked back at the sizzling hole in her roof.

“Yes. Sometimes it throws a rock at you.”