Cake of leaving

Late Wednesday afternoon my coworker Jameson came by my desk to cheerfully deliver me a piece of what he referred to as "cake of leaving." I didn't quite catch what he said at first. "Cake of leavings? Like a cake made of shit?"

Jameson knew I was pulling his leg. "No, a cake of LEAVING." He explained that one of the longtime employees in our operations department was , and the cake was for her on her last day.

I looked at the plate and noticed there were two pieces of cake, two forks, and a suspicious smudge of crumbs and frosting. "Why are there two forks?"

"Well, there was only one plate left, so I just brought a few pieces to go around for the IT guys."

I was still confused. "Uh... I still don't get it. What are the two forks for? Am I supposed to eat both of these pieces of cake?"

"No, dude. Just eat a piece if you want one and then pass the plate on to the next guy."

"Ok, I -- wait, what?" Now I was really confused.

"Yeah, I already had a piece, you can have a piece, and if someone else wants a piece, give it to them."

My gaze returned to the crumby frosting smudge. I saw where he was going with this, but I was still having a difficult time with it. "So you already ate a piece of cake off this plate?"

"Uh huh!"

"And I'm supposed to hold this plate between my legs while you eat the next piece?"

"What is wrong with you? I brought you cake. What part of this do you not understand?"

"The part where I feed you cake."

Jameson clearly knew I was giving him shit for his rather unusual solution. "I do something nice for you, and you've just gotta make it into something it's not, don't you."

"Of course I do." I knocked a piece of cake off the plate into a paper bowl I had retrieved from a drawer.

"Why do you always do this?"

I didn't want him to think I was ungrateful. "Hey, it's not like I don't appreciate the gesture. It's very nice of you. But I don't see why we have to eat the cake Lady and the Tramp-style and meet in the middle."

"I fucking hate you."