Not The Favorite

There has been a certain someone protesting in front of the police station, which happens to be right across the street from my office, for the last few weeks, yelling about our city’s corrupt and unjust policing. I have no issue with anyone protesting but this guy is using a megaphone. It’s so loud in here that my boss has been working out of an office on the other side of the building because he can’t concentrate for all the yelling. We assumed that if the police could do something to stop it, they would have done it already.

So yesterday, upon discovering that the police can’t do anything without a complaint from the public, I made a call to the police to register my complaint. Dude was pretty irritated when the nice police officer came to inform him of the complaint. Lots of pointing and arm shaking. I got lots of high fives around the office for making the call. Everyone has been pretty annoyed with this guys megaphone.

He’ll be back for sure, he's already said so, but I will make a call every time he uses the megaphone and that will add another $250 in fines which will make him want to protest more. Vicious cycle but I’m willing to stick it out if he is.

And then the earthquake happened. Shortly before 3pm, I’m sitting at my desk and a coworker asks me if I can feel the building moving. So I stop everything and sure enough, it is. Not like it usually shakes when a big truck goes by or when there’s construction. It’s swaying back and forth. So it goes away and then comes back and I hear noises I really don’t like, so I say “I’m going for a walk!” and she and I bolt outside. Practically running outside. No one else, except one other lady, came out of the building until the fire alarm went off. When everyone finally came out, we trickled over to our emergency meeting place where we proceeded to have post-earthquake drinks on their patio. :)