There goes the neighbourhood. Or a thought something like it went through my mind, as four teenagers -- three guys and a girl, starting squeezing themselves and their backpacks and their I-phones and their no-doubt-soon-to-be-loud conversation into the chairs around a table just three feet from mine at the coffee shop.
I felt sympathy for the guy on the other side of their table from me, who almost got hit in the head by a back-pack as it was swung around and over him on the way to being squeezed between the chair of its owner and the wall. Really, though, I was just projecting my un-ease onto him, assuming he shared my discomfort at their arrival.
I wonder at what point I became so possessive, proprietary, and defensive of this corner of the coffee shop?
I realize -- in hindsight, of course, that they had to squeeze into the table they were, because as the least accessible and least roomy table in the place it was the only one left ... and because I, just because I had got there earlier, was spread out alone -- just me and my laptop and my daytimer and a notebook or two, over a table meant for four, and I wasn't showing any sign of letting go of the real estate and the comfort I had managed to secure for myself.
I wonder if I might have done anything to make this situation a little better for all concerned?
And ... what actually made me think this was a problem needing to be solved?
Because, as the next hour played out ... the four teenagers were no trouble to me or anyone else. They just wanted a nice, quiet place to eat their lunches and chat and check a few things on their phones.
And after they had done that, and left for whatever was next in their day -- probably back to school, neither I nor the coffee shop nor the man on the other side of their table from me were any the worse for wear.
In fact, I don't even remember noticing them leave. Which makes me sad now.
And I'm left wondering what on earth and what in my soul made me not like them and welcome them in the first place?
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