As a waiter at a coffee shop asks two gentlemen if they wouldn't mind combining each other's private coffee experience into a single table (essentially... bunking up), they give each other the exact same look.
"We need room for the other patrons," she says, "there's 4 of them and you're sitting in a booth."
You really have no options here. People who sit in cafes for awhile tend to sprawl. They don't exactly treat the booth/table like Southwestern's coach class. I think the idea is to keep the widest base possible, for, of course stability, and more importantly... aura : computer in front, book at my left, phone on my right, and a plate holding a half-eaten sandwich behind the computer to falsely but effectively answer the" "is that seat taken" question.
Whichever guy she looks at last is forced to give a response. Why would you approach me? Why not ask him to combine his newly furnished booth apartment with my established nook of comfort? What If I was doing something important. Why didn't I set further from the front of this place? That might have saved me. These are the final thoughts before you oblige the rules of protocol.
(spoken aloud) "I was actually just leaving anyway"
(internal monologue) "I was just leaving anyway; leaving a quarter of a sandwich that amounts to maybe $1.50 that I have to now throw away while taking my walk of shame to the front door, holding a paper cup that is worth... well like a million dollars cause its free refills, leaving an half-written email that I pray google auto-saved before I shut my computer because I saw the new renters staring at me. At my eyes no less! That's what I was just leaving, because that's the protocol.
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I watched this happen only only moments ago. I watched this happen because twenty minutes ago I walked past the booth from which the man was thrown. I walked past it because the last words I spoke in this place yesterday were, "I was actually just leaving."
