Ran into one of the department heads at Barnes & Noble before dinner.

He essentially waved hi to me, handed me a book, and left. Funny fellow.

The actual book was: Cosmo’s Guide to Red-Hot Sex.

Heading down to Texas in a few weeks. I’ll be handling machines from the Nature Conservancy and setting up a remote research center for the University of Illinois.

I’ll be close to Austin, and I hope to eat tons o’ Texas style bbq. At this research center they occasionally do wild boar roasts. I’ll have to see if they can’t “accidentally” drown a boar in BBQ sauce while I’m there.

“I have an important errand I need to see to.”

I guess that’s about as clear as you can put it, without being too vulgar. He could have told me outright, “I need to use the facilities,” but the time alone would reveal too much about his little “excursion.” In the end, he prolly made a wise choice choosing to be vague while needing to rush to the toilet. It just happened to be bad luck that I wanted to get some water.

You may think, he might’ve just stopped by the restroom on his way back. True, but unlikely. My office is on the first floor, and his department/office is on the the upper floors of the building (4 and 5). He prolly would’ve attended to his business upstairs. In addition, the particular washroom is located past 2 sets of stairs AND the elevator. On any other floor, he could’ve easily reached a bathroom without going so far. Which suggests he did not want to risk the wait of the elevator, nor the potential bowel jostling at the stairs.

But yes. He might have still stopped by after his “errand.” However, when I happened to catch him coming out, I knew. Maybe it was that moment outside the washroom when he saw me. The glint of recognition in his eyes. Or maybe it was the stench of shame that came from the single user restroom behind him.

EDIT 3/21/2011: I’ve noticed a larger amount of web searches for it, so I’m including some text here: soursprite I see what you did there picture

I enjoy teasing fresh graduate students. (I wasn’t a total douchebag, I did help eventually.) Almost felt like dubbing this the next of the Utter Confusion set.

In other news, I keep my mouth open in the same position during conversations.

Edit 6:36AM - Noticed an error in first panel. Corrected.