Ever feel as though the Universe is conspiring against you?

I'm late to the first lecture of my second year at University. Not just a bit late, but really late. I hate being late.

By really late, what I mean is that I'll only be one or two minutes early instead of having a comfortable buffer of ten to fifteen minutes.

What? I like to have lots of time to arrange my pens, papers, get comfortable in my seat, and have a moment to relax before the lecturer begins talking.

None of the lateness is entirely my fault. Firstly, I couldn't find my rat-toothed forceps and spent five minutes frantically searching for them before remembering that Judith used them last term and hadn't returned them. Not that I needed them today, but not knowing where they were was giving me anxiety. Then, after choking on my cup of tea because it was too hot, spilling half of it out down my front, and subsequently having to change my top, I finally made it out of my room only to discover that whilst sitting in a cycle-rack all summer doing nothing, my bike had developed a flat tyre.

Which means I will now have to run like fuck all the way from St Johns College to lectures in the city, instead of pedalling like fuck. I can't run to save my life.

Stupid bike.

Bollocks.

Did I mention I cannot stand being late?

Did I also mention that I am a rubbish runner, and I'm even worse at it when I'm annoyed?

My heart feels like it's about to give out by the time I reach the top of the stairs to the lecture theatre. It's one minute to nine. There's still hope I'm not going to be late.

But when I burst through the heavy double doors into the theatre, the place is already crammed full, and as I bound down the steps to where me and my friends usually sit, it becomes apparent that my usual space next to Judith has been taken and there's a bloody boy in my seat.

I'm one of those people who hates change and likes to sit in the same seat in the lecture theatre every single time. A fact I thought EVERYONE in my year knew. Don't ever sit in Sunita Chandrakumar's seat; she'll eviscerate you with her very thoughts.

Yet there he is, bold as bloody brass. A piece-of-shit boy, in my seat. The seat I occupied for the whole of last year. The seat that EVERYONE knows is mine.

If looks could kill, my eyes would have have blasted a blazing hole through the back of his skull by now and probably obliterated a few innocents in the front rows to boot.

I mean, who does he think he is, displacing me like this?

The worst thing is, there's nowhere else to actually sit down, apart from on the cold, bare step next to the seat-thieving little fucker.

I settle myself down, making sure he knows just how inconvenienced I am without me actually telling him outright. If he has any sense of chivalry, he'll offer me my seat back and the universal balance will once again be restored.

Spoiler; he's had a chivalry bypass. He's seemingly completely unmoved my the fact I'm squirming around trying (and failing) to get comfortable, because cold, metal-framed lecture-theatre steps are not designed for backsides.

I sigh in a miserable, vexed sort of way. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch as the bastard anxiously glances over in my direction. He leans downwards towards me and I sense he's opening his mouth to speak. Excellent. I've bothered him. He's going to do the right thing. He's going to ask me if I want to sit in my own seat.

At the same time that I eagerly say "Yes, of course!" he says "Excuse me, could I borrow a pen, please?"

Wait. That was NOT my intended reply!

Seriously, shoot me now. Not only have I lost my seat to this tosspot, but it seems I'm practically begging to lend him my stationery too.

Wordlessly, I fling over my least favourite spare biro in his direction, too annoyed to look up.

"Thanks."

I don't deign to respond.

What imbecile, by the time second year rolls around, turns up to lectures without a pen for fuck's sake? Trying to clear my mind of the incident, I busy myself with intensive note-taking, determined to squeeze every ounce of information out of this lecture. I'll claim my seat back in the interval between this fifty-minute-long lecture and the next.

One-and-a-half hours later, my arse has what is probably by now a permanent step-shaped indentation in it. The interval between the 9am pathology lecture and the 10am pharmacology lecture failed to materialise, due to an overrunning of the former and an overenthusiastic under-running of the latter. I rub my temples in a vague attempt to remain calm. I shall bide my time and evict the rogue before the 11am lecture.

At ten to eleven, the pharmacology lecturer wraps up his talk on dissociation kinetics and I turn to my left, expecting Mr Fucky McFuckface to get up from my seat, stretch his legs, grab a coke from the vending machine, go to the toilet, do something. Anything.

Yeah. He does something all right. He drops his head on his arms and settles down for a nap.

A nap! He is taking a freaking nap in my seat. How dare he?

Enough. I cannot tolerate any more of his shit.

I cough loudly. The boy doesn't stir.

"Ahem!"

Still nothing.

Clearly, he's not a candidate for a subtle approach. Shoving my bag and notes aside, I surge to my feet and fiercely poke him between the shoulder-blades with my index finger. Big mistake; it's not a soft area to prod anyone. I'm sorry, finger. Please don't be too broken.

"Mmph." The boy sits up sharply, looking around sleepily for the source of his discomfort. His gaze settles on me.

"Excuse me," I state, crossing my arms in a businesslike way and tucking my now-throbbing finger out of sight. "You're in my seat."

He raises a superior sort of eyebrow and responds in a bored, public-school-type of voice.

"Your seat?"

"My seat."

He pauses for a moment and briefly examines the desk, his brow furrowed in puzzlement.

"But this is a lecture theatre. I don't see a name tag anywhere. Do you own this particular seat?"

I'm enraged at his patronising tone and a bit lost for words as seriously I thought he'd do the noble thing and vacate the seat as requested. The best retort I can muster is an indignant "Well of course not, the University owns the seat, but that's not the point. I always sit here."

He appraises me coolly for a moment. Then without even bothering to reply, the posh fucker turns away, drops his head on the desk and promptly starts to nap again.

Enraged, I prod him again.

The boy heaves a heavy sigh and languidly turns to face me again. "What is it now?"

"You're wasting a seat if you're just going to sleep in it," I whine. "Some of us are actually here to learn stuff."

"Maybe you could learn to mind your own business." And with that, he's napping again.

Congratulations, you have JUST signed your death warrant, Mister.

I return, defeated, to my cold, horrid step and begin to plot his downfall.

"That was your fault" I growl at Judith during lunchtime. Two of my friends and I are sitting on a square expanse of grass known by the locals as 'Parker's Piece', enjoying the warm autumn air and absorbing as much vitamin D as we can before the winter shortage hits.

Judith Cassandra Wall, who was my loveliest friend, who I would always ALWAYS save a seat for in a lecture theatre even if I had to fight off a thousand Godzillas and a Hulk to do it, pulls an apologetic face.

"I'm so sorry, Sunny. I thought you weren't coming!"

I'm shocked and a little hurt. "But Jude! I always attend lectures! You know I do. And I was only late because I was looking for my ratties which you had borrowed, which then meant I didn't have enough time to sort out my flat tyre."

"Why were you looking for dissection stuff? We haven't got any anatomy practicals for several weeks," says Saffron, busily filing her nails.

"That's beside the point, Saffy," I wave her away airily. "I need them back in their rightful place, in my dissection kit holder."

"Sunny, you are insane."

"Saffron Olivia Hudson Magellan, I'm not insane; I'm anxious. There's a difference," I sniff.

"Anyway, you missed at least one lecture last year," retorts Judith, trying to justify her actions this morning. Actions that cannot be justified, Jude. You fucked up and now my arse is out of shape.

"Unfortunately, I had food poisoning that day," I reply coldly. I notice a little too late that she has cunningly deflected the topic of my dissection kit. "I could hardly attend lectures when I was barfing out my entire digestive tract, could I?"

"Funny how the 2am burger was responsible for you feeling shit for twenty-four hours, but the nine pints of lager before that had nothing to do with it. I had no idea that vegetable patties could be quite so dangerous," pipes up Saffron smoothly.

I choose to ignore her.

"And he didn't give me my pen back," I whine, suddenly remembering. "He stole my seat AND my stationery."

"But he was cute," replies Saffron. Shallow cow.

"I'm cute," I pout, as Saffron condescendingly pats me on the head. "Cuter than any seat-thieving boy. Anyway, boy medics are NOT cute! They're all supercilious misogynists and I've never met a decent-looking one. Seriously, studying Medicine in Cambridge is enough to turn any woman gay."

"That's quite an astute observation, you know," replies Judith thoughtfully. "I wonder if male medics elsewhere are just as dismal."

"I looked around Oxford before choosing here," says Saffron, plucking casually at a blade of grass, "and came to the conclusion that Cambridge medics looked slightly less like abstract Picasso paintings than Oxford ones did. There was definitely at least one man on a bicycle in Oxford with both of his eyes on the same side of his face and his nose in the wrong place."

"Kind of like Peppa Pig, you mean?" I ask, just to clarify at a level I can understand, because my knowledge of fine art would fit on a postage stamp with room to spare.

"More like Daddy Pig, I suppose. He had stubble and glasses," muses Saffron.

I'm so glad we cleared that up.

I take a moment to flop backwards on the grass, and stare up into the sky at all the fascinating cloud formations overhead. "Weird. That cloud looks exactly like a sperm whale."

Saffron glances in the direction of my pointing finger. "Hmmm, I think it's more of a wine bottle myself."

"I've really missed our intellectual conversations," sighs Judith. "What time is it?"

Saffron checks her watch. "Twenty to two. Yikes! I've got to go."

"Me too. I've got a meeting at two with my pathology supervisor." I scramble to my feet, hurriedly brush the bits of dead grass off my arms and gather up my belongings. "See you tomorrow. Don't forget my forceps, Jude."

After spending the first hour post-lunch discussing pathology with our college supervisor, and the latter part of the afternoon in the bike shed with a repair kit, some WikiHow instructions, and my punctured tyre, I resolve to get up extra early the next day. I point-blank refuse to spend another morning of lectures sitting on a freezing-cold metal step and getting cramp in my butt-cheeks.

My alarm is set for 7.30am, and by 8.30am, I'm cycling steadily through the city to the New Museums site, ready to bust into that lecture theatre and claim my rightful seat. Finding a spot to secure my bike, I'm almost whistling with joy at the thought of having all this free time to leisurely arrange my stationery and notes in preparation for the 9am neurology lecture. I ascend the steps outside the building and stroll casually across the floor to the lecture theatre. Humming silently to myself, I fling open the door and…I'm about to explode.

He's sitting in my fucking seat again, except this time he's brought a girl with him who is occupying Judith's place.

Who the fuck does he think he is?

I pause for a moment, considering my options. Roasting him will probably achieve very little based on yesterday's outcome; he's likely to ignore me or give me another supercilious response. I am obviously not physically strong enough to drag him out of his seat and stomp violently on his head, which is the mode of action I'm keenest to take.

I opt to take the moral high ground and decide I'm not going to give him the satisfaction of a win. I'll simply start a new life in a different row, as much as it pains me to sit elsewhere, because, ugh, change. Who actually likes change?

It's all well and good until I draw level with the boy and his friend, and my foot gives way unexpectedly. Arms flailing wildly, I unwillingly succumb to the force of gravity to tumble inelegantly past, ending up slumped in a heap several rows below.

There's an ominous silence, interrupted only by the sound of an errant pencil slowly making its way down the remaining steps until it comes to a natural stop. Then someone stifles a snort.

I leap to my feet to avert any further humiliation after briefly weighing up and discarding the other two options of thrashing around in agony like a Premier League footballer (too thespianic) or discreetly rolling under a desk until everyone has forgotten the incident (I'd have to roll back up the stairs and where's the discretion in that?).

Dusting myself down and avoiding eye contact with everyone, I primly gather my fallen belongings and, with as much dignity as I can muster (read: not a lot), I find the nearest empty bench and sink onto it, but not before I've cast a glance upwards at the seat-thief who is suppressing a smirk.

I don't know him, but I hate him already.