Coffee shop dilemma

Here's a situation I found myself in last weekend: You're sitting in a coffee shop, laptop out and doing work, with a cup of coffee on the table, and suddenly need to use the restroom.

What do you do?

Let's assume you didn't bring a laptop lock with you.

You could:

1. Quaff the coffee, pack up your stuff, and bring your stuff with you into the restroom (denying yourself the enjoyment of a slowly sipped coffee)


2. Bring the coffee along with your stuff into the restroom (exposing your coffee to undesirable restroom air)


3. Suck it up (just decide not to use the restroom to the possible medical detriment of your vejiga urinaria)


4. Ask someone to watch your stuff and then go to the restroom

I think most of us would go with D, and I was about to myself, until I stopped and thought about it.

Consider this: If I can trust one stranger enough to watch my stuff, why can't I trust all strangers and E, leave my stuff there and go to the restroom?

You could even make the case that asking one stranger to watch your stuff puts you in even worse position than just getting up and leaving your stuff. Now said stranger knows you'll be away and incapacitated for a good minute or so. That's a minute in which he (or she) could snatch your belongings (with your simulations and thesis stored on them -- oh wait, that's just me) and run out the door with nary a trace.

At least if you just get up and leave your stuff, you might be making a call or getting a sugar packet or better yet a napkin, keeping an eye on your stuff the whole time. You might be coming right back, and who wants to mess with Irate Napkin Guy?

I was really working up a mental lather over the whole thing and thought I'd hit on one of those situations that exemplifies how bizarre modern life gets sometimes. I pictured writing a novel based on the incident -- about a guy, no, a PhD student, whose life could have gone any of five ways based on what he decided to do here. There'd be a book tour, movie rights, hanging out with Paris Hilton, the works.

But by the time I decided to ask the stranger at the next table to watch my stuff, RW arrived and sat down across from me. Ah, the sixth option. That made the moint poot.