Dear Ma’—no. No, actually. You do not get a proper salutation. I am writing this because I am not allowed, due to workplace rules and general human agreements, to walk immediately over to your desk and smack the pen you are using as a tiny microphone out of your hands. So this is less an open letter and more a desperate woman’s silent plea to ask you to PLEASE STOP SINGING OH MY GOD.

Why are you doing this. Why. Is it because we are working in a TV office? Do you think one of the TV people are going to stop dead in their tracks near the crafts table, momentarily paralysed by aural pleasure? “Wh…WHO is that beguiling creature in the knitted beret, and why didn’t you tell me you had a support staff that made Rihanna sound like a sentient old tooth?!” the Exec will say, before dropping a bag of money labelled “REKORD DEEL” on her desk. “Justice is swift. Taylor Swift, that is!” she will say in this fantasy, as she traipses out of the office to a waiting Hummer limo. That no gonna happen. 

The one thing that might happen, if we are honest with ourselves, is full-on murder. Since starting this job last week I have woken up 6:30am daily, showered and left the house within the hour, and then taken the public transit system both further north and east than I even realised it went, for almost 90 minutes, before actually spending a very pleasant and peaceful day making charts and schedules and collecting bottles of water. However, the 6am thing is really taking a toll. I recognize that this is most people’s everyday and just a short temping thing I am doing because I left my phone in the back of a cab and it’s really quite pathetic that I can’t handle an early morning or 10, but I just can’t. I work late into the night and have developed a schedule that allows me to work from home in my cosy jim jams well into the afternoon and that’s just how it is, sorrynotsorry. 

Anyway, I’m wrecked now. I have become a sunrise grinch, recoiling from the beautiful morning light and cursing couples under my breath for talking on their commute. This morning I pictured myself strangling a man with his headphones because his greedy little ears couldn’t handle his nu-metal at a reasonable volume, and instead had gluttonously turned the sound up until the tinny screaming poured out of them and into the space and the aching, tired heads of the strangers around him. “This is why people push other people in front of trains,” I thought seriously to myself for a split second. “This is why you need to ensure a solid eight to 10, psycho,” I thought the split second afterwards.

What I’m saying is, nameless PA with the knit hat, if you keep singing in the adjacent office like that, I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. You don’t actually have to worry about full murder—a semi-anonymous post on a Canadian women’s website is as forward as I will be about it to you. You could come into my office and ask me to my face“Does it bother you that I mostly sing the chorus of that one Pink song over and over, or that I sometimes free-trill for hours alone in the office with the door open even though I know you’re right beside me?” and I would probably laugh like an insane person and tell you it was fine. “HA! HAAAAaaahhahahhahahhahhaah ha, ha. It’s fine! It’s FI-IIIIINE. Great tunes. Cool hat. No problems here. Nope.” – Portrait of the Artist as a Young Loon

I was supposed to write a different column this week. My mom is going to be devastated that there is no Grown-Ass Woman’s Guide re: How to Eat Too Much Cheese and Fall Asleep Without Farting on Your Boyfriend this week, but I honestly can’t think about anything else. It is just like you’re currently singing: I can’t go for that, no can do. 

Anyway, cut it out.