Meeting friends for lunch, I arrived at the restaurant 15 minutes early. A couple having a quiet conversation sat at a corner table in the empty dining room. When the hostess looked up from the newspaper she was reading, I asked to be seated. Explaining I was expecting three others, she grabbed four menus and marched to a table practically on top of the quiet couple.

I saw where she was headingandtold her I would prefer sitting on the other side of the room.