Table Trespassers

I seem to have had a bit of a break from ranty Friday recently, but at least that means that I have several ideas stored up that are just waiting to be unleashed the moment I open the floodgates and let 'em out.

Now everyone knows that in school, there are a lot of rules. I don't know about other schools, but in mine there are very specific places that we can and can't go at lunch time, especially when exam season is upon us.

So because of this, the canteen is undoubtedly the busiest place in the school at break and lunch, as everyone fights for food and the need to socialize.

But do you know what I just find completely unacceptable?
When someone (or a group of someones) sits at OUR table.

Girls go around as a gaggle. Boys go around as a gaggle. No one really knows why, but everyone in secondary school are incapable of doing anything on their own.

And these gaggles, they have places. On the first day of the year, when you go into that canteen, you  have to make a choice. A choice that will effect the rest of the school year. Where you are going to sit in the canteen. (That's why the year 7's are always floating, cause they don't know this rule. I may have just given you the key to life.)

Now every single break and lunch since year 7, my friends and I have sit at the same table in the same corner of the canteen.

But suddenly, out of nowhere, this group of girls from the year below suddenly think that it is ok to sit at OUR table. Which it most definitely isn't!

And at first, we were fairly lenient - I mean, everyone makes mistakes, right? We gave them a look and made sure that we got there quicker the next day in order to snag the table and prove our point.

But they just didn't get it! They kept sitting there, and now...now it has become a full on war.

Everyday it is a fight to see who can get there first. Forget the food, when we run to the canteen, its for the table, not the chips. And then if you're the first one there, you spread out across the three tables so that everyone else can sit down.

You've got to be careful though with the spreading out thing. Once there was four of us sitting down, so two of us went to one end and two of us to the other end, very clearly making our point. But do you know what they did? They came and sat in the middle of us, completely defying everything we were trying to show!

But it is a completely non verbal battle. We haven't spoken a word to them, nor them to us. It is all done in looks and body language. There is the triumphant gleam in their eye when they beat us and the oh so smug smirk when we beat them.

And the REALLY annoying thing is that it is completely ridiculous! My friends and I have discussed it, and we are completely willing to SHARE the table half and half with them. But their deliberate DEFIANCE to comply has pushed us over the edge, and now it seems to be never ending.

And when I've told this story, so many people have asked why we don't just move tables. I'll give you two very good reasons why.

One, we are not giving in. We were there first, we have always been there, and they have only recently decided that they want the table, and that just isn't on.

Two, there are no other tables. Literally, every table in the canteen is full, or invisibly reserved. And if we go and sit at a seemingly empty table, when the 'owners' of that table show up, we are being just as bad as our table trespassers.

So, that is my current predicament. I'll let you know as the year goes on who's winning, but that the moment (not to speak too soon) I think it's us!

See you soon!

And if you are a table trespasser, I would suggest strongly that you stop it now.