So, I'm sitting in a Panera Bread restaurant yesterday to do a little writing and suddenly I needed to use the restroom. (I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that I had four cups of iced tea while working on my latest writing assignment.) That's when I was faced with the old dilemma—do I trust the guy next to me and ask him to watch my laptop and all the rest of my stuff or do I just hurry to the bathroom, hoping that my laptop will still be there when I get back?
Have you ever wondered why we trust the "guy next to us" in such circumstances when we don't trust anybody else? For the record, I don't think it's a good idea to trust strangers who are either next to us or across the room from us in such circumstances. People are people—flawed and often choosing to do the wrong thing when faced with temptation. But sometimes you just have to. I certainly wasn't going to pack up all my stuff (computer, file folders, paperwork, sunglass, etc.) each time I needed to use the restroom. Yeah, I used it more than once. I was there for four hours doing what I call BIC (butt in chair) time. Sometimes, when writing assignments back up on me, I force myself to sit and write until I've finished the article or chapter I'm working on (stopping only for the occasional restroom break). Yesterday was one of those days.
I opted to not ask anybody to watch my stuff and just hoped that it would be there when I got back. Thankfully, each time I did come back, all my stuff was there, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I think that coffee shops/restaurants need to hire security guards to watch stuff in circumstances like this. Or maybe they could install video monitors in the bathrooms so people in my predicament could watch their belongings while in the restroom. Okay, that's a bit much, but it would be nice.
