So That Happened

Every time I ride into Seattle in the morning with my dad, the radio and I wage war. There's never anything on. Of course it doesn't help that I listen to three stations and one of them is NPR. I turn on one station that's playing a commercial, flip it to the other that's playing a song I can't stand, and then flip it off. About 17 seconds later I repeat the process. This makes for a very aggravated Olivia on her way to work. So this morning, following my dad's advice, I brought a couple CDs--mixes I'd made a while ago to play while I cook.

I popped in a CD and the first song was "Mr. Pitiful" by Matt Costa. I was not feeling pitiful this morning (although I could have fooled anyone), so I skipped it. The next song was the Glee version of "Fire" which I was also not thrilled about at that precise moment. I skipped that one as well. When I'd skipped seven songs in a row and was halfway through the CD, I got annoyed and put in a different one. That didn't go well either. "These CDs suck!" I said, and shoved them into my bag. My dad looked confused. "Didn't you make them?"

Mom: I'm lobbying hard for a ceiling fan.
Dad: Lobby quietly.
Mom: Why?
Dad: So I don't hear you.


I've mentioned here before that the office in which I work is a strange, silent, oftentimes cavelike place. It's like walking into a black hole. Because no one ever talks, I have frequent email conversations with a friend who sits literally two steps away. Yesterday we heard a woman laughing in an office near our cubicles. Immediately after--and I'm talking before she'd even finished laughing--the following email exchange took place:
H: Who's cackling?
O: I don't know, but I can't concentrate with all this noise.
H: We should report her to security. I feel this is a major breach of office rules.
O: And while we're at it, we should complain about these obnoxious lights. I can't work when I can see my own hands on the keyboard.

Sure enough, the next morning the lights were out. The office is truly a magical world.


I was reading an article in the paper this weekend about a woman who was hand-searched in the airport after the underwire of her bra set off the metal detector. I was enraged. I shouted, "Oh my god! I'm never flying again!" My dad's response: "You're going to make a great travel writer."