>Me: 1 The Most Annoying Man in the World: 0

Seriously. Look up ‘jerk’ in the dictionary and this guy’s picture will probably be next to the definition. He always comes into Starbucks with his tinted eyeglasses and his fussy collared-shirt-under-a-sweater and his hair painstakingly combed and sprayed into place. He seats himself in an armchair, spreads out an armful of philosophical books on religion, and proceeds to talk loudly and pretentiously about his theological views on… well… everything. Sometimes, his wife is with him, other times it’s one of a revolving cast of pedantic, boorish men.

Shockingly, The Most Annoying Man in the World is a priest. Episcopalian, if I remember correctly. I know this because everyone knows this. He manages to make it known every time he comes in to drone on about Thomas Merton as he daintily sips on his iced soy latte. And I find it so hard to imagine the possibility that The Most Annoying Man in the World might have a congregation. If this man were giving the sermons at my church every week, I’m pretty sure I’d be agnostic right now.

But while The Most Annoying Man in the World’s noisy and self-absorbed chatter is irksome, what makes him supremely annoying is that he’s rude.

He’s so rude!

I can’t count the number of times he’s gotten on the baristas for making his drink wrong. Not enough milk. Too much milk. Not enough ice. Too much ice. Et cetera.

And that’s not all. He doesn’t make way for other people, won’t scoot his chair over a bit when someone else is trying to create space, gives withering looks to those who dare to make eye contact.

Surely I’ve adequately made my case that this man is the epitome of annoying.

So you can understand why I immediately tensed up when he came into Starbucks a little while ago and seated himself in the armchair beside mine. His wife had come in a few minutes earlier and was seated at a nearby table. She motioned for him to join her. He shook his head and signaled with two fingers for her to gather her belongings and come and join him.

I quickly realized that this jerk expected me to get up and move, so that he and his wife could have the two armchairs. No matter that there were several open tables for two scattered throughout the cafe. No matter that his wife had actually saved one of those tables for the two of them. No. Tables were not good enough for The Most Annoying Man in the World. He and his beloved deserved an armchair.

As if peeing on his territory, he grandly opened a binder with a picture of Jesus on the front, put it down on the coffee table in front of our armchairs, and fussily arranged his and his wife’s belongings around it. Then he looked pointedly at me, while his wife stood awkwardly in front of us.

I didn’t look up. I simply continued typing away at my computer.

After a moment, his wife sighed and went and perched on the arm of an empty chair across the cafe. She stared at me mournfully while the Most Annoying Man in the World harumphed and cleared his throat.

I kept typing.

This was harder than it sounds. I am a get-up-and-move kind of person. Generally, I don’t care that much where I sit.

But this situation was different. I was dealing with the Most Annoying Man in the World. His desires were unreasonable. Not only could he sit anywhere, but I was using one of the few outlets in the place. Did he really expect me to move to a table without an outlet so that he and his wife could sit back in “their” armchairs and chatter loudly and importantly about Creationism?

He so totally did. I could tell that he was befuddled that his overbearingly annoying personality hadn’t been enough on its own to send me scuttling off to the nearest outlet-free table. And so he decided to take it up a notch. He stood up with his Jesus binder, positioned himself directly in front of me, and pretended to read from it.

I can only guess that this was my cue to look up, so that he could annoyingly ask me to move. I assumed he was beating around the bush only because even The Most Annoying Man in the World knew that his request would be completely inappropriate and selfish.

But since he was The Most Annoying Man in the World, I braced myself for the question anyway. I was determined to give him an answer a reader once suggested I use whenever any inappropriate request is made.

“Would you mind moving to a table so that my wife can have your comfortable armchair-with-an-outlet-that-she-won’t-use?”

“I’m afraid that’s impossible.”

It truly is a perfect response. And I mentally readied myself to give it, with a big fat smile plastered across my face.

But at that moment, Fate intervened. The armchair beside the one his wife perched on across the cafe opened up. The Most Annoying Man in the World moved with preternatural speed over to plant his beehonkus in it.

I was spared from an altercation that probably would have ended with the arrival of the Metro Police and the regional bishop.

This time.

This post originally appeared on Parents.com.