I live in a cubicle. My boss lives in the cubicle behind me. I face away from him, he faces my back. I often try to talk to him through the cubicle walls, since I can hear him as clear as day, and he, well… simple sentences like “I have a stomachache, I think it’s the vegetables I’m eating,” become, he: “What? You saw a purple squirrel?” Me: “Sigh. I hate vegetables.”

Three hours later, I’m munching away on evil, evil vegetables (I am pudgy, and I have a whole mess of trips in my future in which I’d like to wear my favorite not-pudgy pants).

“…and yet you’re STILL EATING THEM,” drifts through my cubicle wall. I pause in my munching.

How can he hear me chewing, but he can’t hear me speaking? Whole Foods, please look into quiet carrots and hushy sugar snap peas.

Back in a sec, I need some of those peanut butter cookies I saw at the other end of the building.

Five minutes later, I’m reading something in dead silence. He: “Huh? What’d you say?” Me: “I didn’t say a thing.”