But when he tells a friend the story, she has her own tale.

"Remember the laptop my company replaced six months ago?" she tells fish. "IT never came by and took it back. They called me this morning looking for it, and I packaged it with its associated paraphernalia and left it out on the table for them.

"I was on a conference call this afternoon, and the IT guy came in, opened the box, removed the Ethernet cable and walked out.

"I'm thinking the IT departments of our two different companies are in cahoots, trying to confuse us."