creatures of habit

Creature of habit. Probably should be incorporated into my name. And it only became more apparent to me this morning, here's why.......

There is a group of us that are at Panera nearly every morning between 6 and 7. We always sit in the same places EVERY DAY. A few in our little group arrive when the store opens at 6 and the rest of us trickle in by 6:30. But we always sit in the same seats.

Unless. Unless an intruder invades the space. Such as happened today. I arrived at 6:20 and there, sitting in MY CHAIR was a stranger. A stranger in my chair. It can totally mess you up. My eyes met with the group of regulars who were sitting in their same seats. They knew my look and the all burst out laughing. Reluctantly I sat down at a table outside of the comfortable sphere of our group. And pouted! Not really but I wanted too!

As I sat with my laptop open at the table in the foreign, uncharted and untamed area of Panera, I'd look up every now and then and see my friends, who were sitting in the safe confines of our common space, grinning at me. I'd stick my tongue out at them and return my look to my computer. Of course, that caused uproarious laughter explode from them.

Well it wasn't long before one of our veterans got up to leave for the day. I jumped on the opportunity to slide back over to the 'homeland'. The universe had once again been righted. Well for the most part. The stranger still occupied my chair which was causing a slight imbalance. If he's there tomorrow I guess we'll have to give him the 'membership package' and the assigned seating arrangments!

Funny how our little group ALWAYS sits in the same places, but we don't protect the space each of us occupy??