This is how rumors get started.

Overheard:

"I have to go pick up my daughter -- we have lawn seats."

"Your daughter is pregnant?!?!?"

[Silence. Confused pause.]

"What? No, we have lawn seats for the concert we were just talking about."

Who:

Hallway chatters at work

I don't even know how she could have stated things more clearly:

When you make casual statements, such as those pertaining to summertime concerts*, you make basic assumptions, for example, "The person I am talking to can hear me." You know what happens when you assume.


* YES, I know, it took me a while to post.

Bugged at Work

Overheard:

"Most people get bagel crumbs in their keyboards... but not Becky!"

Who:

My former officemate in the aforementioned prime RRB real estate.

What did I get what did I get??

A ladybug.

I seriously have no idea where it came from*, and it was the first bug** I've actually seen at work.

Luckily, after a long college and law school career of having had every computer problem known to man***, including having worn off the letters on my keys with my nails after two months of typing, I was able to snap off the keys and set Lady free. Anticlimactically, she**** flew to the doorway and settled in by the lightswitch plate. And that's really as much detail as I have on this situation.


* I know, it probably was on my obnoxiously huge work bag.

** Insert "Homeland Security bugs their offices" joke or fear here.

*** However, in my day, we didn't have "spyware." We had viruses, and we LIKED it.

**** Because, all lady bugs are obviously female.

Paging Captain Obvious

Overheard:

"Only in D.C.!"

In reference to:

an advertising campaign that graced* the walls of many D.C. metro stations this summer. The campaign was a tourism drive for West Virginia, or should I say, West Virginia Wild and Wonderful.**

The ad pictured some sort of very very messy outdoor adventure activity or sport*** and the text, "More dirty laundry than a judicial nominee."

The campaign was targeted, as one might expect, towards D.C. commuters, or at least D.C. tourists who understood that they were, in fact, currently in the bowels of the capital. This touron, apparently, just got a kick out of this snappy campaign. I can see her over Thanksgiving with her extended family, recounting her trip to Washington... [fade to St. Louis] "And we rode on the 'Metro'**** and there was this ad that you would only see in Washington! About the government!"

* And by "graced," I mean, "plastered."

** Because after this ad campaign, I know I don't think of "West Virginia" without thinking "Man, W. Va. is Wild AND Wonderful."

*** You know, just something CRAZY that people do only in West Virginia.

**** Note, in all likelihood, that she will not mention the fact that commuters cursed her every hesitation while walking in crowded areas, and she will not be able to tell her family, "They walk on the left, stand on the right, and step out of the train to let people by and then YOU CAN GET BACK IN." Because she still won't have picked up on these things.

Easy as One, Two, Two

Overheard:

"Did you say A or B?"

"I said [unintelligible]! As in A, B, C!"

Clear as Mud:

I recently lost some prime real estate near the women's restroom on the 4th floor of RRB, and was relocated to less-prime real estate. The novelty of my new 3.5 half-walls still distracts me, so it hasn't sunk in yet that I have been assimilated.* Logistics has kept itself occupied with rearranging the deck chairs, and they have been surprisingly efficient at it.

This gem was Overheard when I had just moved in to my new cube (4.4-74, if you were waiting to send my Cubewarming present**). The half-wall nature of the office will likely afford me all the opportunity to catch many such gems. Here, Logistics Mover radio'd Logistics Centcom Operator*** to ask where he was supposed to move some large heavy widget he'd been carting around the building. I blame this miscommunication on the architect of the RRB****, who in his***** Infinite Wisdom apparently decided that room numbers were Out and totally lame, and room numbers carried out to a decimal PLUS room letters PLUS two punctuation marks****** were the wave of the future. I did not make any of that up.

In any case, Logistics Mover did not know whether to take his haul to office Something Point Something Dash A or Something Point Something Dash B. Logistics Mover and Logistics Centcom Operator both spoke with very thick accents, and I felt significant sympathy frustration for Logistics Mover. He sounded more confused, while Operator sounded angry. This particular incarnation of the exchange was Mover's fifth attempt at clarification. I know of no resolution to this matter.

This is another situation where, I wonder, how some things get done in the government.

* At least I didn't drink the Kool-Aid.

** Thanks for the magnets, Mom!

*** The best part of all of this is that at least they weren't using SprinttogetherwithNextel Push-to-Talk.

**** No doubt a direct descendant of L'Enfant himself.

***** Clearly this building was not designed by a woman.

****** And here I thought the beauty of numbers was that there were always enough to go around.