I must be in the coffee shop.

And I observe the man with the red shirt. Again. He took my place yesterday, and I found that very annoying. I like the brown easy chair in the dark corner and he was there. Today, a girl with a MacBook is there. I’m not as annoyed because she is not the guy in the red shirt, and in fact, she has displaced the guy in the red shirt.

I look at the girl and say to myself, “You displaced him,” and I imagine that she nods back, subtly, so no one can see it. “Good work,” I telepathically tell her.

So I glance around and see that he has set up his papers and books and pen and laptop and Filofax and Rolodex on a table in the exact middle of the brightly lit main part of the coffee shop.

But he is not sitting there being annoying. He’s actually outside pacing back and forth in front of the coffee shop window. He is, as is always, always true of him, talking on the cell phone in his annoyingly affected way.

He uses his left hand to hold the phone to his ear, index finger outstretched along the spine of the phone, his other fingers fisted around the base. He is listening with his left ear, which means he is processing his language with his right hemisphere, which is annoying.

He has his right thumb hooked through the side belt loop of his brown pants. Brown pants. How annoying. At least his thumb is not hooked through his back belt loop. Oh, no, wait, it is now! How annoying.

He walks in a semi-marching, semi-slouching cadence, with his arm double-timing his lurching footwork. Annoyingly. Old-style, Michael J. Fox, Reagan-era affectation. Get outta here, man. Trickle on down the road to some other coffee shop.

And his hair is not blowing in the wind. Yet there is a steady 15-knot breeze with gusts to 20. His hair. Is annoying.

At least I can’t hear him because he is outside. But he was inside before, and that was annoying. He was pacing in circles around the six-person table he’d commandeered in the middle of the room. He would round the table with his thumb in his belt loop in his semi-marching, semi-slouching “I’m making a deal on the phone” stance. Every time he made the south turn of the table, his head would thrust unabashedly in the direction of the upper half of the pretty girl sitting at the next table over. Oh, breasts (neck-stretch). Oh, I’m on the phone making a deal…making a deal…making a deal…. Oh, breasts (neck-stretch). Oh, I’m on the phone making a deal…making a deal…making a deal…. Oh, breasts (neck-stretch). Around and round he went, over and over, until he finally wandered outside and started his back-and-forth pacing. His annoying pacing.

I need this guy to get a desk job somewhere.