A Day in the Life of Jeff_Parts_7,8,9,10

www [bad word] English as a Second Language Podcast
Day in the Life of Jeff
Episode 7 – The Commute Home and Running Errands

COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to [bad word] s “Day in the Life of Jeff,” part seven: The Commute
Home and Running Errands. I'm your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan, from the Center
for Educational Development.
In part six, we were at work, we took a break, and we went to lunch. Now, our
work is finished and we get to go home. Let's get started.
[Start of story]
It’s five o’clock and it’s quitting time. I put a few files into my bag, grab my mug,
and say goodnight to the rest of the people in my area. I go to the parking
garage and get into my car. I signal my turn onto the street and drive toward the
freeway onramp. I merge as best as I can onto the freeway, which is always a bit
of a hassle at this hour. Traffic is stop-and-go all the way from downtown. I hear
on the radio that there’s a stalled car in fast lane near La Brea, backing up traffic
all the way to Hoover. I decide to get off the freeway and to take surface streets
for the rest of the trip.
I need to make a stop on the way home. I know that the fridge is empty, so I
decide to stop by the market. I get there and I pick up some French bread, a bag
of apples, a few bananas, some pasta, tomato sauce, and a cooked chicken.
Luckily, they have a lot of checkout stands open, and I get through the line pretty
quickly. I thank the cashier and the bagger and push my cart to my car. I open
the trunk and load everything up. Just then my wife calls me on my cell phone.
She was going to be a little late getting home and asks me to make something
for dinner. Tonight, I will be the cook.
[End of story]
This episode is called “The Commute Home and Running Errands.” Commute,
you know, means driving back and forth from your house to your work. To run an
errand, “errand,” means to do something, usually something outside of your
house. For example, going to the grocery store, going to the drug store, stopping
by the post office to mail a letter, these are things that you have to do that are not
part of your work but that you need to do in your daily life. And, we call these
things errands, and the verb is to run an errand.
Our story says, “It's five o'clock and it's quitting time.” Quitting time is the time
that you stop working. To quit, “quit,” means to stop, so quitting time is the time
that you stop working at the end of the day. “I put a few files into my bag,” I “grab
my mug,” - my coffee mug - and I “say goodnight to the rest of the people in my
area.” If you work at a big company, usually you are divided into smaller groups
that work on the same topic - the same type of work. So, there is an accounting
section and there is a sales section. One way to describe those smaller groups
is an area, so people in your area would be people who work next to you on the
same things that you do.
“I go to the parking garage and get into my car. I signal my turn onto the street.”
To signal, “signal,” means to indicate, and in a car it means to turn on what we
call the blinker, “blinker.” The blinker is what indicates whether you are going to
turn left or right. So, when you are driving your car and you want to make a turn,
you have to signal, are you going left or are you going right. And of course, in
the back of the car, there's a little light that goes on and off, we would say it
flashes, “flashes.” To flash means to go on and off quickly.
So, “I signal my turn” - left or right - “onto the street and drive toward the freeway
onramp. I merge as best as I can onto the freeway.” To merge on the freeway
or to merge when you are driving means that there are two lanes - two cars next
to each other - but the road is getting more narrow. The road becomes smaller
and now you only have one lane, so these two lines of cars have to go into the
same lane, and we call that merging. To