There is a woman who works down the hall from the desk where I'm sitting today. This woman, we will call her TMI, chronically insists on sharing with me her most intimate of bodily functions. Though, of course, it's my own fault for initially opening the flood gates for this kind of information (pun unavoidable).

A few months ago, TMI was lounging like a Moomoo doning JavatheHut at her desk, sporting a noticeable grimace that usually elicits the question, "What's the matter?" Being the gullible-gus that I just happen to be, I fall right into the 10-foot-in-diameter-briar-bear-pit-surrounded-by-yellow-warning-tape-which-reads-"CERTAIN DEATH OR DISMEMBERMENT, STAY OUT!"-covered-only-in-a-light-vale-of-shrubbery Trap. The situation unfolded as follows:

Temp: "Oh, what's the matter?"
TMI: "My stomach" grimace, "is hurtin' me somthin' aweful..."
Tempers: Shit. That was more than I wanted to know… defiantly. "Oh, that sucks." Shit.
TMI: Grimace, grimace, wince "yeah, I've been havin' stomach problems all week, I'm going to the bathroom every twenty minutes and it's just flowin' right through me…"
Temp: Shit. Literally. I knew it. Why?!?!? Do people feel the need to share that type of thing?!? "Oh," feigned pang of sympathy, "That's awful?"

I walk away, my imagination riddled with the image of her current bowel movements and tri-hourly trip to the woman's bathroom.

NEXT SCENE:

About a month ago: TMI is walking slowly past my desk, holding her stomach again. AH! HaHA! I know better. I concentrate and keep my eyes focused straight ahead, scanning the current story concerning Mary-Kate Olsen, intently staring at the small computer screen as if to feign near-blindness. Doesn't work; she walks up to my desk. I quickly click on my Microsoft Word Icon to hide the gossip-blog and turn, wearily, to face my challenge. "Hey," then I offer the obligatory, "Howya doin?"

"Uh, my stomach, it's the opposite of the last time, honey; it's all stopped up in there and I can barely walk…"

LALaLALALALAlalalalalalala* I can't hear you! * LALALAlalalalala. Shit (or lack thereof). I.n.a.p.p.r.o.p.r.i.a.t.e. I return to my investigation of the thinner Olsen, and stare blankly at the computer screen for a good ten minutes, unable to feel the right side of my face.

JUST A MINUTE AGO:

TMI: Pops her puffy face in the side of my office as I'm checking my e-mail... again: "Do you have a pillow around here?"
ME: "Um, yeah, I think there is one back there somewhere," I return to examining my e-mail for the 20th time waiting desperately for someone to e-mail me, so I can be distracted for my last 5 minutes in the office.
TMI: "Oh, good, I need it for sittin'" then she points to her left, oversized, draped-in-purple-velvet, butt-cheek: "Boil."

Seriously? A boil on your ass? It's 5:15. I'm going home.