The [Widget], the [Wadget], and Boff

The mind is an amazing thing. I spent much of last night, both awake and asleep, with that phrase – the [Widget], the [Wadget] and Boff – running through my head. By this morning I had recognised it as the title of a Science Fiction story. A quick Google, and I had established it as a short story by Theodore Sturgeon from his “The Joyous Invasions” collection.

Now why I should be thinking of that phrase, I have no idea. The last time I probably read that story was when I bought the Penguin paperback (complete with a front cover painted by Alan Aldridge, the fashionable illustrator of the time) way back in 1967.

So I’ve just got the book out of the library upstairs (yep, I still have the book) to re-read. Perhaps that will give me a clue about last night.