The Cover Letter I Wish I Could Send

Dear Future Employer,

My name is Olivia. I don't know what time I was born because my parents neglected to look at the clock, nevermind that they took a picture of it when my brother was born. I have a Bachelor of Arts degree in English, a collection of fruit and vegetable stickers, and a cat who eats sweet pickles and bits of tofurky. Among my most impressive accomplishments are the following:

1) A nomination for the C.P. Johnson Humanitarian Award in sixth grade (which I did not get, probably because one time I glared at the new kid for sharpening his pencil when I was brainstorming a synonym for "vacation").
2) Offering a commendable degree of moral support when the fan on my friend's computer stopped working in a train station in Oslo, Norway and she had to fix it using nothing but a pair of tweezers and a Band Aid wrapper.
3) My memorization of just enough U.S. presidents that when the Monday crossword asks for Grant's successor I can smugly write HAYES into the blank squares and then lean back, delighted with myself, until someone walks by and comments that aside from the name of the 19th president, the puzzle is entirely empty.

I feel I am qualified for this position because I have a near-encyclopedic knowledge of House and can recall the precise instant of my teenage years when I understood that milk, when left in a thermos in one's locker over Christmas vacation, has all the aromatic integrity of a rodent corpse. I have scored higher than all my Facebook friends in Pathwords. I know how to pronounce (and spell!) "Ljubljana," the capital of Slovenia. At the age of five I discovered that I was the only human on earth who could correctly predict when an Olympic ice skater was about to execute a jump. I am an ace with scissors. I can thread a prehistoric Singer sewing machine like no one's business. I hold a household record for most crunches performed on a daily basis (as well as simultaneous household records for most extensive knowledge of female Australian political figures and most complete definition of "synecdoche"). I am also extremely modest.

I am available for an interview over the phone or in person, though be aware that punctuality cannot be guaranteed when my "car" has two wheels and as a general rule goes no faster than seven miles per hour.

I look forward to hearing from you, and thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Olivia