Friday, June 10, 2005
table vultures
Today I made the grave mistake of being early for a lunch appointment. 15 minutes early; or so I thought.
Considerate lil' me trooped up to the perpetually-crowded Food Court where I was to meet my colleagues and proceeded to hunt for a large enough table. And as luck would have it, I snagged a table for 8 in less than a minute.
The next 30 minutes, however, were spent trying to read Malcolm Gladwell's Blink while fending off various forms of table vultures:
The Hovercraft
Stealth is the hallmark of this lifeform. He silently hovers around the table you are guarding, looking expectantly at you as if waiting for an invitation to sit down. Not particularly effective when you happen to be reading a particularly interesting bit in Blink and don't sense his presence.
The Space Invader
Now this is, by my standards, the most irritating one of all (I cherish my personal space alot). The Space Invader stands right beside where you are comfortably seated and stays here. Really. His nether regions barely 5 inches away from your face, he looks down at you with a look that means to say, May I? but comes across alot more invasive.
The Conqueror
The most obstrusive of all table vultures, the Conquerer selects a seat from the 7 that you are guarding and promptly proceeds to plonk himself down. So that when you look up from your book, you find that one of your colleagues has morphed into a 60-year old uncle in a cleaner's uniform. So you turn to him and pleasantly inform him, That's taken. And he ignores you. Hence you have to lean over, palm the table top between yourself and him, and yell, TAKEN! Only then he looks up with a jolt, shovels yet another mouthful of rice into his mouth, picks up his plate and scurries off.
Next time I'll carry one of those "reserved" signs. So much easier.
// posted by the commentator @ 3:47 pm 
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