I sadly post my relatively large work desk on Craigslist because my new studio is about the size of an inflatable castle ball pit. To my delight, I immediately receive phone calls from two interested customers. After explaining the desk is approximately large enough to perform dual circumcisions and is in pristine condition, my first customer agrees to swoop on by so I inform the other caller of the pending transaction. But after waiting an hour for a stranger who refuses to return my phone calls, I call back interested customer number two.

“Do you believe in evolution?” she asks me.

“Sure,” I say and hear a concerned sigh.

“Well, did you ever practice any evolutionary science on the desk?” she asks.

“I don’t know, maybe,” I say.

“I cannot consider a desk that has been sullied by impure hands,” she says.

“Oh, then no,” I say.

“Ok, great,” she says with relief. “I’ll swoop on by.”

As I hang up the phone a scruffy bearded stick man lurches through my front door and shiftily greets me in a scratchy voice. Of course – this must be caller one. I offer my hand but instead of shaking it he removes his filthy spectacles, places them on the desk, and begins vigorously scratching his graying beard with both hands while his entire body quivers. Steel wool on sandpaper accompanied by tiny grunts. I take a step backward and glance out the window at the afternoon skyline, considering every strange soul that may be living within it’s confines. The audible scratching ceases and the man clears his throat.

“How many, er, circumcisions could you, er, perform on this desk at once?” he asks. We’ve been over this already.

“Two,” I say. “You can perform two circumcisions at the same time, side by side.” I step over to the desktop and demonstrate, molding two infants out of air, then consecutively picking each one up and snipping the ring of air foreskin around each air penis. The man nods.

“What about, er, vasectomies?” he asks.

“I suppose it depends on the clientele,” I say. “Seeing as how the procedure is most common in grown men and that grown men are usually much larger than infants, a single vasectomy would require the entire desktop.”

He stares at the desk for a long moment before asking me to make him a sandwich. I agree on one condition – that he buys the desk from me. Soon enough I’m in the kitchen spreading mayonnaise on thick slices of sourdough and thinly slicing a fresh tomato while the man, propped against my refrigerator, watches closely. Then I hear a woman calling my name from the living area.

“I’m sorry,” I say after approaching her, mayonnaise knife in hand, “but the first person I contacted actually showed up to claim the desk.” She frowns and glances out the window at the afternoon skyline, considering every stroke of poor timing the confined populous must have experienced today.

“Then why did you have me come over?” she says. “This has been a waste.”

“Nothing is, er, a waste,” the man says, emerging from the kitchen with a sandwich consisting of sourdough bread, mayonnaise, and tomato slices. He stands behind me in the doorway, slowly munching on my uncompleted creation. The woman’s jaw drops.

“This man is buying the desk?” she says. “I bet he doesn’t even have a vehicle to transport it!”

“Hey, do you have a car?” I ask the man. He shakes his head and gently lifts my acoustic guitar-equipped stuffed polar bear off my bookshelf, dropping the sandwich remains on the floor.

“What did I tell you?” the woman says. “Do I get a sandwich now?”

“It depends – are you going to buy this desk?” I ask her as I stare at the man who is now sitting on my unmade bed, staring into the eyes of my stuffed polar bear and scratching his beard.

“Yes – that’s why I came in the first place,” she quips. I turn to face her and see another man – taller and shaved – saunter into my studio.

“Hi, is the desk still for sale?” he asks the room.

“No, I’m about to buy it,” the woman says, violently fishing a wallet out of her purse.

“Wait, who are you?” I ask.

“I’m Tony,” Tony says. “I called over an hour ago but got caught up in a rousing game of Connect Four with a paraplegic child. It’s a long story, really.”

“Wait, then who the hell are you?” I ask the bearded man on my bed, pointing at him with the mayonnaise knife.

“Do you have change for a fifty?” the woman asks.

“Nice polar bear!” Tony says. His eyes light up and he bends over for a closer look. “They say the polar bear evolved from the brown bear – which is my favorite bear – so these hardy troopers are a-ok in my book.” Tony scratches the bear’s head and the bearded man stares at him. The woman’s jaw drops.

“What did you just say?” she says.

“Hardy troopers?” Tony says.

“Don’t play dumb with me,” she says. “You made an ‘evolution’ reference.”

“So I did,” Tony says. “Referring to the bears.”

“You’re a heathen, clinging to the empty promises of science. And you’re tainting my desk.”

“Yes – will someone just buy the goddamn desk?” I say.

“Yes – do you have change for a fifty?” the woman says, raising her voice to an intimidating decibel.

“Yes – I am a heathen with logic and factual evidence on my side,” Tony says. “Evolution is a sound biological process that expands our world for the good of mankind.”

“SHUT IT,” the woman snarls, crumpling the fifty in her palm.

“I think considering trilobites in your family tree frightens you,” Tony says. He glances out the window at the afternoon skyline, considering every multi-celled organism that may have swam through the city hundreds of millions of years ago.

“I think God frightens you,” the woman says.

“God, er, frightens me,” the bearded man murmurs.

“Trilobites! Trilobites!”

“THAT’S IT,” the woman says, stuffing the crumpled fifty into her wallet thrusting it into her purse. “This is COMPLETELY ridiculous. You can all take your nonsense and collectively shove it.” With that, she storms out of my studio and I turn to Tony.

“Please buy this desk,” I say. I can tell he’s not interested as he performs a brief inspection.

“How many circumcisions did you think this could accommodate?” he asks. We’ve been over this already.

“Two,” I say, ready to perform phantom circumcisions at any second. He scratches his head.

“Well, the desktop looked a lot larger in the photographs,” he says. “I was banking on four simultaneously, accounting for the photographs and your lack of circumcision knowledge. Obviously I’m wrong.” He turns to the bear, which has been discarded to the floor next to the sandwich. “Is your bear for sale by chance?”

“No, it’s not.”

“Well, good day then.” With that, he saunters out of my studio and I turn to the bearded man. He’s laying upright on my bed, propped up against the wall, staring at me. I sigh.

“Look, I have no idea who you are,” I say, “But will you just take this desk?” The man coughs loudly.

“I, er, have no use for a, er, desk,” he says. “But listen.” He slowly rises from my bed and approaches me, patting my shoulder on his way out. “You never know when, er, you’ll need a nice flat surface to, er, write about a bum that just peed all over your bed.” With that, he closes the door behind him and I’m left alone to wash my sheets and write the most random story ever.