A little personal space is all I ask.

OK here's the straw that broke this camel's back. I was in my local favorite breakfast spot. Nicko's on Florida Ave in Tampa, FL. It's a cool little greasy spoon with perfect ambience and impeccable service. For those of you who are familiar with the bistro, you will know the tables to which I will refer, for others let me describe it just a bit. This cafe is the classic american diner style, with counter service and barstools in the center, and booths around the outside. The exception is space at either end. There you will find small tables that work very well for groups of more than 4 people if they are added to the booths on either side. However, they are very close to the booths on either side, particularly when you don't know that person. I have had a number of unpleasant experiences while seated at those booths on either side of these tables. Let me convey a couple of those, starting with the most recent, which was by no means the worst, but disagreeable nonetheless. The place was rather empty, plenty of seating both in the booths and at the counter. Lo and behold where does Mr American Idol decide to plop down. You guessed it at the little table right next to the booth where I was sitting. Normally my personal envelope is very responsive to my environment. Stroll along in Times Square and it's virtually form fitting, but take me out to a nice mountain state park or a deserted beach and it may stretch out to something closer to a 200 ft radius. I do recognize that people are different, and this issue was two-fold. This fellow could first off, sat at the counter or a booth unto himself. Before you chime in, yes the booths are normally reserved for two or more, but given the number of folks in there at the time it would have been perfectly acceptable for him to occupy one himself. That was the lesser of the offenses however. No sooner did Mr I-don't-know-the-words sit down that he starts audibly humming to the background music. I mean come on you sit right on top of people and then start making noises. Did you ever stop to think that we don't want to hear it? Really, we don't. Well maybe those 200 billion americans that watch American Idol might, but not the .0001% of us that happened to be in Nicko's Saturday morning. Sit down there and keep to yourself or sit somewhere else if you want to hum, not one of the handful of places where you're forced to be only two feet away from strangers. Next incident happened a few months ago. This time when we entered we had our choice of corner booths, but no other. The crowd seems to come in waves and soon after we took our seats the place got noticably quiet as several parties departed. Thinking, wow this is gonna be nice, next thing you know, boom in come two people who are too large to fit in the booths, and where do they sit, not at the table next to the empty corner booth, NO they sit at the one next to us. I have nothing against people of larger girth, I really don't but I do have a problem with the lack of courtesy displayed by them sitting there making audible smacking noises and one of them wearing so much perfume that my eyes begin to water, right in my personal space. All I am asking is just think for a moment, the restaurant is pretty empty, I can't fit in the booth, so where would be the next less intrusive spot for me to sit? Just take that moment and think before you act. It's easy. We all have moments where we lapse, it's to be expected, but let those moments be the exception not the rule. Next time you go to the beach and the folks are spread out rather uniformly with plenty of buffer, pick a spot to match the pattern, equally apart, don't settle in with your screaming rugrats 10 feet away when the whole beach is at your disposal. I mean come on. Same thing goes when youre enjoying a park, or forest or any other public resource. While youre exercising your right to go where you want to go, sit where you want to sit and all, try exercising a little courtesy.