I was having my breakfast at another of our fine service stations, sitting at one of the many tables, reading my newspaper and drinking my coffee. There were plenty of empty table in the cafe area. In fact most of the many tables were empty.
I was in a bit of a tired and crotchety mood. I really need a holiday, but I am not going to get one. I am going away somewhere in the UK next week, but I will have to finish this unfinishable script so that's not much of a holiday in anything but a totally false sense. Anyway I wanted to be left alone.
But three burly men chose to interrupt my self-indulgent misanthropic reverie by deciding they had to sit at the table right next to mine. Even though there were a dozen or more tables that were clear of any other human being. I wasn't sitting that far out from my table, but I was slightly in the way of the fattest of the men who chose to sit on the seat next to mine, rather than his other option, the one that would not have needed to bother me. I pretended not to notice the back of his chair banging against the back of mine. But it was no good. "Can you move your chair in, please" asked one of the fat man's friends, reasonably politely. Without looking up I grudgingly moved further into the table. I felt like shouting at them, "Why have you chosen to sit there? Look at all the other tables you could have sat down at. Why have you chosen the only one in the whole room that means you have to disturb another human being having their breakfast, trying to forget that they've taken on too much work?" But there were three of them and they looked like they might be quite hard (even the fat one) so I just pulled a face that conveyed some of that information. Though there was a part of me thinking that if these men were to kill me then I would be dead and wouldn't have to do my work and I wouldn't have shamed my family by killing myself. It wouldn't make me a hero, but it would make me less of a loser and then all my troubles would be over. You know, after the brief last few minutes of being in extreme agony as I was pummelled by vicious idiots.
Later the fat man pulled his chair out further to give himself more room, banging the back of his chair against mine, forcing me to moodily pull my chair in even further. I huffed and he sort of apologised. Was this my cue to let these fools know what I thought about their inability to select a correct table in a cafe and then shuffle off this mortal coil? No.
As the men left I looked at them with disdain, but mainly when they weren't looking at me and I wondered that if I went to the toilet they cam in, whether they would make the inappropriate gesture of standing at the urinals right next to me, rather than as convention dictates the urinal that is as far away from me as possible, presuming there is a choice.
I didn't go to the toilet though. So we'll never know.
