An Utterly Useless Story

Went to the evening service and had a interesting, albeit insignificant experience there. As I made my way down the aisle in search of a seat, the first available one was next to a lady who occupied the first chair adjacent to the aisle. Here is the visual.

aisle(woman)( )( )(some dude).

Each set of parentheses represents a chair. Just like most non-denominational churches that avoid traditional church furniture such as the organ,a large mahogany pulpit and other things, my church is equipped with interlocked chairs neatly arranged into rows and columns, not pews. So as you can see, there were two empty chairs between the lady and the dude.

This kind of seating arrangement presents a quandary forcing the new arrival to pick which person to sit next to. Unlike a pew, I couldn't pick an arbitrary spot to sit on, so I had no choice but to choose a victim. No, I wouldn't pick the exact mid point to avoid having to invade someone's personal space as a workaround to the dilemma. It's uncomfortable and my fanny isn't that big yet. Besides hogging more than one chair while people were still arriving wouldn't be a cool thing to do.

So I picked the one closest to the aisle and next to the woman. So here is an updated snop shot.

aisle(woman)(me)( )(some dude)

A few seconds later, to my astonishment, the woman abruptly got up, moved a few rows back and found herself another chair. Huh? I took a shower that day. Even brushed my teeth.

After taking a few moments to compose myself, I realized that she had a huge wedding ring on. So she must have reasoned that she and I looked like a couple attending the church service together.

I am thinking about spending the next few days composing an exhaustive algorithm to help fellow single church goers like myself determine which chair to pick under various given sets of circumstances. If I had taken some time to think about the ramifications of sitting next to a married woman which resulted in her having to relocate, I definitely would have taken the chair next to that dude. But how about this. What would a guy do?

aisle(married woman)( )( )(married woman).

Morals to this utterly useless story?
- Bring back the pews. Give me that old time religion!
- Go to church on time.
- Find myself a girlfriend to go to church with.