I’ve always wanted to have a tab here at the cafe. Well anywhere really. I’ve always wanted to be like Norm from Cheers, you see, It would be ‘cool’, that word whose use when I was a kid seemed to be confined to the Fonz or Elvis, but now is used by every Tom, Dick and Harry and offends me greatly, but which I think in this instance would be borderline acceptable.

To be allowed to have a tab would show that an establishment trusts you to pay your debts. But I don’t think this place would approve a tab for my frugal orders. I’m assuming with tabs, the idea is you pay off significant chunks of them as you go along, but with me, there’d be no real chunks to pay off. The owners would be thinking, “What the hell does this guy want a tab for? He spends £3.40 a day and he’s asking to pay that in stages? Really? At what point would we start calling the tab in?”

A tab would impress a girl. It’d show them that I’m trusted by the café. And really, just as I’ve always wanted to duck under a Police ‘Do Not Cross Line’ in the rain with the collars on my coat pulled up as I lead an investigation, or vault a railing, I’ve also always wanted to utter the words, nonchalantly, no point doing so if it’s not nonchalantly, “Stick it on the tab.” I don’t even think I’d bother looking at the waiter as I said the words.