I came into the office this morning only to find it dark and empty. Not thinking it too terribly unusual — as I was expecting my boss to be out anyway — I followed my normal routine of getting a copy of the paper and checking my e-mail, at which point I read the following:

Charles,

I think I forgot to tell you that I will be at a Cato seminar all day today. You can reach me on my cell at (703) ***-****. Patrick will also be out, so you will have to run the entire editorial dept. yourself today. (Hope all the power doesn't make you crazy.)
See you tomorrow!

Barbara

Something doesn't seem right about that. I would think they'd want to send the least senior person, i.e. me, to a Think Tank seminar while they did the business of actually running the department — not the other way around. But hey, whatever floats their boat. The only thing is, I don't really have anyone to boss around while I'm on my power trip, as there's no one else here. I suppose I could yell at Sara our lay-out girl when she rolls in about 2:00, or maybe someone at the copy desk. We'll just have to see.

I just get the strange feeling I'm being watched on closed-circuit television from an undisclosed location. Like Dick Cheney's bunker.