Show Me the Data

"Do you have Jenn's number?" I ask my colleague.

He makes a face. Why would he have her number? I think she used to have a thing for him a year ago, though he didn't return the sentiment.

"I haven't called that number," he says, a little too defensive.

"I called what was her old extension," I say, "but I got Josh K."

"I've never called that one or the new one," he says. "Why do you need to talk to her?"

"She's registering my student today."

"That's a bad idea," he says. "Why didn't you have me do it?"

"I'm not going to have you register my student."

"I've registered more students than any faculty member on this campus."

"Are you sure about that?" I ask.

"More students each semester, more students than any faculty member on campus," he states.

"Can you back that up?"

"I've registered more students than any of the faculty members on campus."

"Even the ones who've been here for over twenty years."

"I don't know. Probably."

"I'd like to see the data behind that."

"I'm not going to show you the data, he says."

"Well, I still want to see that data."

"You're not going to see the data," he says, looks at his computer screen, "motherfucker."

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."

Arithmetic

I'm smoking out back and the director pulls into the lot, exits his car, and heads toward my direction, shaking his head.

"I tell you," he says, "trying to teach [the softball coach] how to do a mail merge over the phone is like trying to teach an algebra equation to a baby."

Hereabouts

From a student questionnaire:

How did you hear about this institution?

The guy who called me said that if I didn't apply he'd kill my dog and make it look like an accident!

Burning One for One in Hell

"They're changing the Christmas program this year. It's going to be more like a play," she says.

My colleague and I take this in.

She continues, "They're even going to have a real, live baby Jesus."

My colleague thinks it over.

"You'd make a good wise man," I said to him.

"I'd bring the myrrh," he says.

"I'd want the gold," I state, "but I'd keep it!"

He laughs as we slip further down the slope of sacrilege.

"He and I wouldn't make good wise men," my colleague says to anyone listening. "We'd end up stopping at Sodom and Gomorrah and blowing all our cash."

"Sorry, Jesus," I say, "but I did get you this great t-shirt!"

Smoke Break Thursday Afternoon

"What's that guy doing?" a colleague asks.

I look around, up into the heavens where his gaze is angled, but see nothing.

"This guy, right here," and he points to a tiny spider hanging by a thread of silk from the overhang above the rear entrance to the building.

"He's waiting around for the opportune moment to lay eggs in some chick's hair."

He laughs.

"Aren't we all waiting for that. Except those aren't really eggs."