DO you ever find yourself wondering whether you’ve briefly slipped into an alternate reality?

Or speculating as to whether people from an alternate reality have somehow crossed the space-time gulf separating their reality from ours?

As I think I’ve mentioned before, it happens to me quite often, and sometimes it even happens when I’m more or less sober.

It happened again a few days ago when I read that lollipop men and women in Swindon who left their job would only be replaced if deemed essential.

I looked out of the window and rapidly concluded that as the universe was the same old one with which I was familiar, the people who made the decision or gave their approval to the policy must be from another one.

In a spirit of friendliness across the dimensions, I’d like to say a big ‘Hello’ to those people.

If you are one of them and happen to be reading this, welcome to our reality. It must be a bit of a culture shock to find yourselves here, as our version of planet Earth is evidently very different to the one you came from.

I want to ask you so many things. Is the Moon different, for example? Is there more than one? Have the people in your reality managed to colonise Mars? Can you still buy those Fry’s chocolate bars which are a bit like the mint ones but have a different flavour of cream stuff in every chunk?

Is world politics the same? Have people where you’re from managed eliminate war and famine? Is the President of the United States a fairly ordinary hue, or does he or she put people more in mind of a satsuma?

Let’s get around to all that later, though, as there’s a far more pressing question I want to ask.

It concerns the definition of the word ‘essential.’ I can only assume that where you are from the word means something along the lines of: “Not really necessary.” Just for your information, in this reality it means something more along the lines of: “Absolutely vital, and an aspect of some other thing without which the other thing faces a very real risk of going horribly wrong.”

Should your definition happen to be more or less the same as ours, I can only assume your version of Earth is even stranger than most of us could ever imagine.

Perhaps in your dimension the time when children go to and from school doesn’t happen to coincide with the time when many adults drive to and from work.

Or if the two sets of journeys do happen at the same time, perhaps either the kids or the commuters have an alternate means of transport, such as personal jet packs.

Maybe the difference is in the people themselves.

wMaybe the children in your dimension, even if they’re of primary school age, are perpetually alert for all forms of danger on the roads, have constant and total spatial awareness and are never, ever distracted by any of the million and one things which distract young people here.

Perhaps all drivers where you’re from never make errors. Perhaps they, like children, are never distracted by matters at home or work once they get behind the wheel.

Perhaps scientists where you’re from have found a way of automatically disabling the vehicles of people with a tendency to drive too fast, to drink and drive or to be plain stupid.

For that matter, perhaps lollipop men and women were never deployed on roads deemed dangerous in the first place, and are paid to patrol random locations.

Perhaps that’s why you think it’s fine and dandy to save a few quid by not replacing them when they leave.

I suggest you have a rethink. In this reality, those men and women save children’s lives, and if you interfere with that you may find you end up with blood on your hands.