I'm quicker than you might think

So, I filled in for the guy while he passed papers on his house. I was at his desk waiting for him to leave and the everything was working fine. He left I sat down completed the request and send it to print. Nothing printed, so I went to the back up plan with bypasses some routines but gives a finished product. Nothing printed from the backup plan, so I poked around the setting and noticed the network administrator change the location of the print server. Eleven thirty of a Friday is not the time I would have chosen to make such a change but then I’m only a small time network administrator.

After twenty or so minutes I had the backup plan working like it usually does but the delay caused a backup of people waiting in the lobby. Normally, I only would have to deal with these things for an hour but that Friday wasn’t normal.

At two thirty my co-worker returned. I told him about the printer problem, about some questionable request I granted or didn’t grant and then left for lunch.

“Do you like the new uniforms?” I was asked by a friend as I sat at a table next to my friend seated at the bar. I looked over at the bartender. She was wearing her usually jeans but a black new polo type jersey with the establishments name embroidered on it.

“Today her tips are based solely on her personality” a different friend said.

“Yeah, I’m screwed” the bartender said.

I stayed a few minutes longer than an hour, I felt I was due.

***

I went back after work and rejoined a friend that had stayed, one of his daughters joined us later. They both left together after one round. I moved to my favorite spot but my courtesy left me one spot over. People were ordering beers from either side of me like usual when one guy places his cell phone, his keyring and his sunglasses by my left elbow, ordered and received a beer and kept all his stuff just sitting on the bar as he drank over my left shoulder. I don’t mind too much sharing my personal space if the situation deems it or if it’s just for a brief moment but this guy bothered me.

I casually watched him look around the bar sometimes even turning his back to the bar with all his things. During one of his explorations, I pinched his sunglasses and hide them behind the stainless steel garnish container that sits at my end of the bar.

He noticed the sunglasses missing quicker than I would have guessed he would. He asked me if I knew what happened. I played dumb but the other regular next to me started saying that he definitely remembered the sunglasses being there. The guy then started to look around on the floor, up and down the bar but he couldn’t find them. Then the other regular started looking so, I looked to. None of us found the glasses so he started to conclude that the last guy to order a beer from our area took them.

I thought for a moment and then pulled the glasses from there hiding place.

“I was playing a joke.” I said instead of saying that I thought you were an ass so I stole your sunglasses.

He turned out to be not a bad guy. I kind of liked him.

But he still should not violate my space.