Wyn Drabble: My perfect plan for more challenges

There could be a lot of queuing if this system takes off.

If you went to an event and felt like a drink or a snack, you could, if you were very old-fashioned, just go to an appropriate vendor and hand over the money or your flexible friend in exchange for the item. But, apart from the queuing, where's the challenge in that?

We need challenges in life to keep our brains ticking over. We need a more complicated, more taxing way of paying for things.

Well, lucky for you, I have dreamed up such a system. Let's keep it simple. For illustration purposes, the imaginary scenario is that you are at a large outdoor concert and, for reasons known only to yourself, you want a battered saveloy on a stick with tomato sauce cascading down from the apex.

You spy a queue and stand in it for what feels like hours but is in fact longer. You inch your way forward, clutching your $5 note and finally make it to the front of the queue.

You: (proffering your cash): A battered sav, please?

Vendor: Sorry, this is the dumplings kiosk.

You: !

Vendor: Besides which you cannot use cash at this event. You have to go to one of the black tents flying a pirate flag and buy some "event currency".

You: Oh!

Another queue, another wait, then success. You buy $5 worth of plastic doubloons in a little drawstring bag plus $1 deposit for the bag which will be refunded to you at the end of the evening if you stand in a queue of people clutching little empty money bags.

I'll stop there. I've shown you enough of my idea so you can see that it involves some of the challenges we need.

But there is another reason I've stopped telling you. I've had to abandon my idea because I have discovered that someone else has already invented something very similar.

It's called AWOCM, which stands for another way of complicating matters. It looks hard to pronounce but, to make matters easy (ie, for your convenience), the "M" is silent.

The system is close to mine but, instead of a bag of doubloons, you buy a number of oxen.

Just joking. What you get is another flexible friend. All you have to do is pay $1 for the privilege, quickly calculate the amount you think you will spend and transfer that total from your usual flexible friend to your new flexible friend which, to heighten the ridicule, I shall call Dorothy.

Clutching Dorothy (sorry!), you join a queue at a drinks tent and inch forward. It's finally time to place your order of a pinot gris, a shiraz and a beer. Pleased that you've mastered the system, you hand over Dorothy.

Vendor: There's not enough credit on this card for your order.

You: But I worked it all out, totted up all the figures.

Vendor: Did you include the deposit for the glasses?

You: No. Would you accept this handsome wristwatch as part payment?

Dorothy: Why don't we just get a battered sav?

You decide to go back to the card vendor and claim a refund but, when you get there, the wireless is "down" so you'll have to cut out the middle man and do it online when you get home. You have one month to complete this refund request.

The owners of AWOCM are, of course, on to a good little earner. They know that, because time is money, most cardholders will simply not bother to claim back their dollar.

So, for those who seek challenges to exercise the brain, AWOCM is made for you. Your brain will be working well into old age.

But you could still be in a queue.

Dorothy: In fact, I've got enough credit for FOUR battered savs.