leave me alone!

What is it with people interrupting me when I'm trying to read at lunchtime? To me, burying my nose in a book sends a clear message: "I am a rude, antisocial bastard and have procured this reading material to avoid having to talk to you, because you are boring and tedious." Apparently the people who work at Gentrified Tobacco Warehouse think of reading as the sort of activity that doesn't even require an "Excuse me, can I talk to you now?" kind of courtesy. They launch into the small talk with no warning.

"That a good book?"
"Yes, it's quite a happy coincidence when my social interaction avoidance device also provides entertainment and/or intellectual stimulation. Unlike this conversation."

Today I was sitting outside on some large brick steps leading down to a fake stream running through the complex, reading. A woman I've never even met before walked right up to me, stood there for a second, and asked, "Aren't you afraid you'll fall in?" WTF? You interrupted a complete stranger's private reading moments to ask this? I'm sitting on a FLAT, SOLID SURFACE.

In retrospect, her question might have been some kind of threat, or maybe the concerns of a person who, like prime time TV show characters who see dead people, has visions of unsuspecting readers tumbling head first from their seemingly stable seating into bodies of water, moving traffic, or cabinets of expensive crystal.

But you know, maybe I don't want to be saved. I just want to be left alone.