Having now attended many of the season’s offerings of drama, music, sport, church , community activities of various sorts, I’m again noticing how we–many of us–seem to have “our†seats that we tend to gravitate to whatever it is that’s going on. Same for parking places at the mall; if you always go in at the Dillard’s entrance , then you ALWAYS go in at the Dillard’s entrance. If you always sit in the third pew on the center aisle, then that’s where you will be found –Christmas or Easter, sunrise service or evensong…and God help anybody who has the temerity to plunk their posterior in that sacred space. Excommunication is too good for these interlopers; and where are YOU gonna sit now? The Pope has his seat, what about yours?
On the other hand, when the auditorium is filling up, why doesn’t anyone fill in the middle seats? Not wanting to have to get past all of those knees is one thing, having to stand along the wall for the entire program/game/show is quite another.
Is it that folks are afraid they’ll wind up next to an individual with digestive malfunctions, body odor, a tendency to do a running commentary on everything in front of them–including fouls or wrong notes?
Maybe if we all just behaved better we might get to see things from better seats, as well as meeting some fellow fans that we could commune with about something even more interesting…like where’s the best pizza in town…or out, for that matter.
The amount of harrumphing and the number of dirty looks could be greatly reduced if we’d all just get over ourselves and get “butts in seats†ASAP to let things get started on time so that everyone can enjoy the activity. Try it sometime. But not in my pew.
