An older woman came up beside me and started thumbing through my newspaper I looked up briefly from my meal.  (Pastrami and provologne.  Yellow mustard. Toasted bagel with crumb cake muffin.)

"Sure." I said.

Then another old woman came up and started thumbing through the leftovers of my copy of USA Today.  She found a section that she liked.

"Is this YOUR paper?" she asked.

"Yes it is.  Go ahead." I said.

"Did you PAY for it?"

"Yes."

"OH!" she said.

"No, go ahead."

Then we got involved in this long discussion about how out of control the republican-christian coalition is the United States is, and the horribly sad state of affairs of the American health-care system.

She sat down and the first old woman approached me again. 

"I didn't ask you if that was your paper." she said, "It dawned on me that it would be pretty nervy of me..."

"It is, but no worries.  If it bothered me, I wouldn't have any problem speaking up."

She rummaged through the left over sections and walked off with the last of my paper.  I was left with the sports and the front page. 

Then I was late back for work, which was, of course promptly reported to my boss without my knowledge, in the continuing campaign from the full-blooded employees to make me look bad, because my work performance makes theirs look anemic by comparison.

But, I suppose that's a story for another time.