How do I explain, I only listen to 3 songs from Into the Woods over and over again.
Help! I’m sitting in the passenger seat of this van and my coworker just offered me the aux cord! I can’t be responsible for choosing mildly enjoyable background music for this group of people! Our intern is 20 years old and cool, and our boss is 65 and boring, and everyone else is kind of in between. There’s no way I can satisfy them all! The aux cord is already getting my palm sweat on it, so now I’m too embarrassed to hand it back over to Sharon.
“Sharon, please, you don’t understand what you’re asking of me!” I whisper. “I don’t know what to pick!” “Oh, anything you pick will be just fine,” she laughs. “You’re young! You know what the good music is.”
Once again, my age has betrayed me. How can I explain to Sharon that deep down, I have the soul of a crotchety seventy-three-year-old hermit, forced by capitalism to come to work and pretend to be a normal and cheery extrovert? But there is no way out. By this time, we are out of range for both radio signal and cell reception. It’s all up to me.
I scroll through my Spotify downloads, and feel my heart sink. Here is what my coworkers have to choose from:
- Agony, Original Broadway Cast Recording
- Agony (reprise), Original Broadway Cast Recording
- Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love, Babe, Barry White
- Agony, Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Oh no! My coworkers are definitely not the type of people who want to listen to the same song three times in a row to debate the pros and cons of different versions. What am I going to do??
I also have a couple of podcasts downloaded, but this is no help, because these podcasts are Esther Perel conducting couples therapy. Honestly, I almost go with this because I think if Jeremy communicates at home the way he communicates with the rest of us over email, he could really use this. But I’m not prepared to listen to strangers discuss why they’re not having sex anymore with this group.
“I’m so sorry, my phone just died!” I lie while smashing the power button. Nice try, Sharon. Today I am nobody’s fool but my own!
