My Innuendos

[This is another re-post from last Spring, but there's more
news, so I thought I'd post again...]

Last week was "one of those weeks" at work.

Over the weekend, a friend at work had one of her friends suggest that
"going for coffee" is an innuendo.  Coffee means sex.

Now, I love coffee. Some days I can't get enough coffee. It perks me up. It
keeps me energetic. It keeps me focused.  It's cheap. I bought a 99-cent
blue-glass mug that holds twice as much coffee as your regular-sized mug. I pay
$1.10 every time I fill it up. After three fill-ups, I've paid for the mug.
After 10 cups, I get a free fill-up. It's cheap and it's great.  Coffee
usually comes in a black liquid state and depending on who you are, you may add
cream and/or sugar to it. Some people even go further and add specialty flavors,
whipped cream and various forms of sugar. It could almost be said that no two
cups of coffee are exactly alike.  Coffee tastes best when brewed at 98
degrees. It brings out the most flavor and the most caffeine.

As a child -and now I see why some people say coffee stunts your growth-I used
to sneak the remnants in my father's mug when he wasn't looking. So, I even like
cold coffee.

But coffee means sex?

"A little sugar," yes. "a dab of cream," alright. "A
quick pick-me-up," you bet. I've never thought of "going for
coffee" to mean sex.

Around the office these days, there are a lot of moves occurring. It's kind of
like professional sports. We get traded between departments every once in a
while. There are not a huge number of moves, but when they do happen, everyone
wants to talk. "Where are you going?" "How's the new guy going to
fit into a different team?" It's just a fact of life working here that if
it happens to you, you're going to have to talk about it. A lot. Around here,
though, instead of just coming out and asking everyone wraps the questions into
an excuse. And the excuse is usually....

"Going for coffee."

And this year I'm moving. And the offers to go for a cup of coffee are
increasing exponentially.

Now, I have a regular crew that I go for coffee with on a daily, if not
semi-daily, basis. Suddenly, one of those colleagues has been told that coffee
means sex. And nothing anyone says can change her mind.

My biggest problem is that I'm trying to explain that coffee arrives hot in a
mug and ready to drink. It's a substance that perks me up. It's the exact
opposite of sex. Let's be honest, the last thing any man does after sex is perk
up.

If coffee is sex, I'm doing it wrong.

If coffee is sex, I'm also the biggest slut at work. Whilst trying in vain to
explain that coffee and sex are vastly different characteristics of survival
("sex is for life as coffee is to the working week"), people tend to
drop by wanting information on the office moves. "Let's go for
coffee!" they say. One woman working in my new area, and to whom I've
spoken to at least 3 times in the 2 years she's worked here, said she's so
excited because now we can "go for coffee!"

Everyone stops by for coffee and every time they do I start to snicker and
giggle like I'm 13 and back in class with the gym teacher trying to explain sex
to us. He did a better job than my parents did, though. "Here. Read this
book" was as close as my parents ever got to "the talk." And by
the time they got around to giving me a book to read it was too late anyway.

Actually, if memory serves, the gym teacher had 5 or 6 kids, so he probably
wasn't the best person to discuss abstinence with us teens.

Aside from the coffee talk becoming a sexual innuendo, there's also some others
that crept into conversations.  I usually ,on a monthly basis, hit a
Mexican restaurant nearby with a couple of former co-workers (worked with them
prior to a big move back in 2000). 

Note to self: Have to get them to stop referring to it as a
"threesome."

One friend at work bought a horse that just so happens to share my name. 

Note to self: Have to convince her that the horse needs a new name before
even more people raise concern over her "sore hips from riding."

I carpool with a number of people living close to me.  One of them recently
bought a new Seabring convertible.  She shouted at me down the hall that we
were going home early and topless...

Note to self: Remind my car pool people that the top down on the convertible
is referred to as 'TOP DOWN' not 'TOPLESS.'

None of this would be so bad, but these things all happened in front of this one
friend.