some ground rules

There are some certain responsibilities that come with being the single girl studying in a coffee shop. I know this. And I happily welcome anyone to share my table, I certainly don’t need to take up the whole thing. So please come, sit, share my plug, introduce yourself, we should get along fine. In fact many of friends have been made this way.

However, everyone knows there are certain rules, or rather..social norms for sitting in extreme proximity with a stranger. I was under the impression that these were universally understood and explicitly written into the coffee shop constitution …. apparently not?

So for the record if you plan on sharing a table at a coffee shop with a stranger and I am that stranger please apply the following:
1. No singing aloud

2. No reading aloud

3. No clicking your pen incessantly to the beat of your ipod– when I can pick up a beat from your incubus song via clicking, you have crossed the line

4. NO STARING…we are sitting 2 feet apart, I know this is hard to believe, but I can see you

5. No matter how many times you say, “aw shit!”..I am not going to ask you whats wrong, so you can stop that now.

6. You can also stop saying “thats so funny” to yourself, I am not going to ask you what is so funny. So you can stop that now too.

7. Did I say no staring?

8. And the most important: Don’t whistle to that song from your ipod. In fact, please don’t whistle period because I am so close to you I can feel the air you are blowing on the side of my neck. But if you absolutely must whistle why don’t you whistle along to that nice James Taylor song that is playing in the background? Because is it just me or is whistled Incubus trying to harmonize with James Taylor just about the most stress inducing clamoring you can think of?

9. Really, if you don’t stop I WILL stick my finger in that little whistle hole

is this too much to ask?

thats all.