I know it’s wrong.  I know it’s mean.  I know it’s small. And I know it’s absolutely unfounded.  But I just can’t help but hate that guy sitting over there at the coffee shop.  Hate him!  He always sits in the same spot, which is about five feet from the spot where I always sit.  Like I’m doing right now.

And I know he can’t be annoyed with me, because – well – what on earth have I done to annoy him?

But there he is, day in, day out, wearing the same St. Jude’s Panthers high school hoodie sweatshirt.  Every day!  Now mind you, this man must be in his mid-thirties at least, so unless he is a coach at St. Jude’s, or the parent of a student, it’s downright pervy, especially the way he wears it, the hood always up, Unabomber style.

This isn’t Siberia, this is balmy California.  There’s no need to wear a hood indoors.   God I hate him.

Plus there’s his choice of reading material.  He only ever reads comic books or graphic novels, lending support to my theory that he must either be a latent or active pedophile.  And even if I’m wrong on that count, my god, this pederast-wannabe needs to broaden his taste.

Then there’s the little matter of his unwavering presence.  This man gives me no peace.  No peace!  No matter what time I arrive, there he is.  It could be 7:15 a.m., it could be 10:15.  Doesn’t matter.  He’ll be there, at the same damn table, in the same damn hoodie.

Doesn’t this man ever sleep in or take a day off?  Now I don’t go to this particular coffee shop seven days a week, because, unlike this freakazoid, I like to change it up once in a while.  And hey, I do have a life (even if it’s been hard to shoe horn one in these days, with all the energy I have to expend hating this guy), but no matter when I go, he’s there.  Always. The management should start charging this guy rent.

In fact, I think I’ll suggest it to them.

And even as I write this, sitting at a different table a good twenty feet away from him, I swear I can hear him chewing.  There’s no need to chew that loudly.

He’s doing it on purpose!  He sees that I have deliberately sat far away from him, so in his childish passive-aggressive way, he’s coming after me.   Smack, smack, smack.  Really. It’s disgusting.

My God, don’t the other customers see it!

Believe me, I’m no misanthrope.  I believe we’re all stuck here on Spaceship Earth together.  I believe we must come together and recognize our common humanity and bask in the oceanic feeling that we are all One.

But this – this situation is intolerable.

I will simply have to act.  One day, perhaps even later today, I will approach this man and calmly explain to him that his very existence feels to me like 20 girt sandpaper in my underwear.  It’s either him or me, and I’m clearly the sane, fair, kind one, so he’s gotta go.

I know you’re with me on this.  C’mon now, if you’re halfway honest with yourself, I know there’s some stranger out there who you see all the time, who you hate for absolutely no other reason than they exist in the same universe you do.

And the universe just ain’t big enough for the both us.