To say that Claire drove a hard bargain would be putting it lightly, but Mark was in the mood for some hot food, so regardless of her demands, he went along with it. Surely he could last until later, whatever she quantified as later was hopefully doable. He had convinced himself that later probably meant lunch time or something to that affect, of course he was making assumptions at this point.<br/><br/>As he walked along and followed Claire to her Jeep Mark's eyes bounced back and forth like a pendulum, and the view of her tight jeans hugging her ass, making each curve stick out Mark felt something stir inside of himself. If nothing else the view was going to make things worth it, she was a beautiful woman all around, and her tight frame was surely exciting.<br/><br/>Sitting in the Jeep while she looked on her phone for diners Mark slipped back into a memory from when he was in college. He took a philosophy class where the professor did a big lecture on assumptions. During that class the professor wrote on the board the word 'assume', then he added two vertical lines to make this: ass | u | me and proceeded to explain the context. "When you assume you make the first three letters, ass, out of the last 3 letters, u and me. Therefore when you assume you make an ass out of you and me. That was the big idea, the major point, but the lecture went on for like 30 more minutes with examples of good assumptions and poor assumptions throughout history.<br/><br/>As she asked questions and began driving Mark perked up and came out of his daydream. "Well my knee hurts a lot, often. Some days the ache is dull and very inside, other days the pain is sharp." Subconsciously he began to rub his left knee, "the therapists claimed it was all phantom pain, that the actual knee couldn't hurt since there is virtually nothing left but ligaments, no bone, so I don't know. Perhaps they are right, but after three months there was almost no improvement beyond what you see, and clearly you can see the outcome." He thought about the words of the doctor after the procedure while he was sitting in the hospital bed, "the doctors told me no heavy running, light jogging would be the extent of my exercise and thus no sports. Impact is supposed to be kept to a minimum to lengthen the life of the artificial joint."<br/><br/>As he finished his explanation Claire pulled into the diner and a rumble came from Mark's stomach that would have woken the dead if such things were possible. He headed out, the fresh breeze blowing lighter than it had on the water, and with the diner nearly empty seating in a booth was wide open. A brown haired woman in her sixties with thick glasses and a curvy frame came over to them in her pink apron, "coffee?" She asked as she held the pot of piping hot liquid. "Yes," Mark responded, and she filled the cup up with a fake smile and waited for Claire's response.<br/><br/>Once the woman had gone Mark decided it was his turn to ask a question, "so what do you do? I know I accused you of a lot of things, but what exactly is it, and what does your job have to do with me?"