Coffee is a Natural, a Natural, Uh...

I dial my smoking buddy/colleague.

"(Jumbled language) outside to have a fag?" I try to say.

"Are you drunk over there?" he asks.

"No, no, just talking quietly," I say, but the language exits my mouth tangled yet again.

"Sounds like you had some problems with that one too."

"You want to go outside soon?" I ask, more clearly this time.

"Yeah, I'll go out there in about five minutes."

"All right. I'll wait for your cue."

Five minutes pass, I see my colleague heading for the door. With haste I rise from my desk chair and in seeing this he veers towards my office.

"Whoa. Just hold on a minute," he says. Then he leans in close. "I've gotta drop a deuce."

I laugh. "Jesus Christ. So I'll be down in five to seven minutes?"

"It's the coffee man," he says. "You know, it a natural, a natural, uh..." and he trails off, waving his hands around in front of him in search for the elusive descriptor.

"Diuretic?" I say.

"Yeah, whatever."

"Whatever."

Manual Transmission

"I Think I found a car for you," my colleague says to a student while we stand outside, smoking. "A nineteen eighty nine Jeep Wagoneer."

"Yeah well, cars cost money, man," the student replies. "How much was it?"

"Three-thousand."

"Well I only have a hundred bucks, and that's gotta last," the student retorts. "Manual or automatic?"

"Manual," my colleague says. "It's a truck."

"Fuck that, I can't do that," the student says. "Gotta have the shift."

"If you want to put your hand on something," my colleague shoots back, "grab your dick."