I rolled the window down to let the breeze of motion cool my face; the expected coastal winds were noticeably absent without help from the moving car. I turned up the radio, some anonymous station playing new rock that sounded suspiciously like old rock that I used to hear in high school. It had a persistent beat and a tolerable melody so my foot tapped of its own volition.

The stretch of road that runs around the large business park block where our soon-to-be vacated office lies is crisscrossed by small swatches of what was once wild lands, a large pond hides between multi-story buildings that house technology companies and corporate satellite offices from larger firms whose headquarters are elsewhere. Creekbeds wind through the area, running down the gentle slopes of the hills and forcing city planners to be creative with the placements of parking lots and strip malls.

It felt like an eternity since this kind of tranquility had crowded out the worry and stress from my over-active mind and allowed me a moment of peace. I relished it, briefly. The reason for the mid-day drive was an all too short lunch break where I was planning to try and run and errand as well as pick up something to eat in under thirty minutes but in the fleeting moment I only had to point the car ahead, feel the moving air and sunshine, and hear the music.

The errand was to return the cheap pair of noise-canceling headphones I’d picked up from Fry’s last week. Not only did the NC feature “work” by blasting literally audible static into the ear, but they were based off the design for a torture device whose purpose was to crush skulls one centimeter at a time.

The returns process was not as painful as I had feared, for all of Fry’s plethora of faults they do at least have a pretty generous return policy and a halfway efficient process to boot. Afterward I spent a few moments back in the headphone aisle but since trying on a pair of Bose headphones had been enough to convince me the TDK set I bought was laughably shoddy, there was little hope that the other models displayed proudly in their impossible-to-open stiff plastic bubble packaging would compare.

I left empty-handed but with a slightly more robust wallet, a state which I find little to complain about.

Addendum

I realize I promised a playlist example for you yesterday, but I felt really sick all day so please forgive me. I will get it posted, as soon as I have time to finalize some of my selections, but it will have to be later this week. I guess there is a reason I avoid making blog-related promises.