NAP at the club

My wife will tell this story in her own words:

Our first round at the local club was against a regular (Barbara) and her (first-time) partner, who appeared to have wandered into the bridge club without having ever played duplicate bridge before.  Possibly he was attracted by the snacks.  He could not figure our how to use the bidding boxes, although each of the three others at the table tried, in turn, to show him. On the first board, he showed out of a clubs (a side suit) and played a diamond.  I happened to know there were more clubs in his hand, as he had shown me his hand about seven times already, although I pleaded with him to conceal it.  I asked him if had a club, and after he produced one, the diamond remained as a penalty card on the table, resulting in my making two overtricks.  Now, anyone can  revoke, not such a big deal, so I wasn't entirely prepared for the festivities of the next hand.

This is the auction and associated activities (I swear!) that ensued.  I am not making this up!

1N-P-2D-P  Fine so far!  No alert, but maybe they weren't playing transfers.  The gentleman in question struggled with his bid box, and finally managed to get the 2H card out of the bid box and onto the table.  Oh, so they are playing transfers, I thought.  He just doesn't know about the alert procedure.  But no, he said, "That's not what I want," and picked up the 2H bid, trying to put it back in the box.  We asked him what he really wanted to bid, and he said he wanted to bid 2S.  The four of us managed to get the 2S card on the table in front of him.

The auction continued:

2S-P-3D-P

Hmm.  Barbara was still smiling. Her partner next bid 3D, after some struggles with the bid box.  We gently informed him that he could not bid 3D.  He was insistent.  "That's what I want to bid," he said.  "You need to either pass or bid something higher than 3D," he was told.  "Your partner has already bid 3D."  "I want to bid 3D," he said.  "That's an insufficient bid," said Barbara, still smiling.  "It's sufficient," said her partner, starting to look very unhappy.  Eventually we convinced him to relinquish the 3D bid back to the box.  Unhappy at this turn of events, he took the King of Diamonds out of his hand, and tried to place it on the table as his next call.

"You have to take a card from the bid box, not from your hand," he was informed.  He put the King of Diamonds back in his hand, and next produced the another diamond from his hand.  Eventually he was persuaded to return this to his hand, and he told us he wished now to bid 3S.  Barbara bid 4D.  Her partner tried the King of Diamonds again.  I swear this happened!  After some more excitement, he bid 4S.  Barbara was no longer smiling. She bid 5D.  Once again the King of Diamonds tried to make its way to the table.  Once again he returned to the relative safety of the spade suit.  He bid 5S.  Barbara gave up and passed.

The auction so far (uncontested):

1N-2D;
2S-3D;
3D (retracted), King of Diamonds (retracted), Three of Diamonds (retracted), 3S-4D
King of Diamonds (retracted), 4S-5D
King of Diamonds (retracted), 5S-Pass.

When the bidding came back to me, I was looking at AJ109x, x, Jx, QJxxx.  I passed. When my partner later asked me why I did not double, I said it would have been like clubbing baby seals.

My partner kicked off with the best lead of a trump.  Dummy tabled Qx, Jxx, 109xxxx, Ax   Declarer played the spade queen, I won the Ace and continued with the Jack of Spades, my partner following.  Declarer cashed the AK of diamonds, led a club to dummy's Ace, and cleared the diamonds with a ruff.  He cashed the King of Clubs, then he exited with a low heart to my partner's Queen.  My partner led a club to me, I pulled trump and claimed.  Down 5, vulnerable.  Declarer had started with Kxxx, Axxx, AK, Kxx.

At that point the Director suggested that Barbara's partner might prefer to play in the Novice Game.  He agreed.