Concrete, Significant Details

“Excuse me, that is my seat,” said the pink woman with the peacock feathers sticking out of her oddly shaped hat. She was now a rather large woman and her ballooning figure was highlighted by her ill fitting church suit that reeked of money so fake it must’ve come from a monopoly game. The suit was a rather off-putting color somewhere between aqua and baby poop green that sort of matched the peacock feathers adorning her head, but also sort of didn’t. “I apologize, I must have missed your name tag on it,” I replied. But I did not move an inch in either direction. Neither did the pink woman. “Excuse me,” she said indignantly, “that is my seat.” “So I’ve heard,” I said in reply, staying as still as a rock in the desert that hasn’t moved since Pangaea. You see, the church that I sat and she stood in was a big building with small pews, so there was more than enough room for everyone to have a seat. The church also had a big steeple with a small cross, a big stage with a small altar, and, I was coming to find out, big people with small minds. “I’m sorry,” the pink woman began again, “you must be new here, everyone else knows that this is my seat.” “Oh, they do? It must be the best seat in the house if your love affair with it is so widely known. I think I will see for myself if it lives up to it’s promise,” I replied, with a smirk. I could see her eyes begin to crease around the edges, as her smile became more like a grimace. “I’m sorry, you don’t understand,” she said, as her peacock feather slid to the side of her hat, balanced as precariously on the side of her head as her sanity was balanced inside it. Just then, the piano started playing a hymn about loving your Christian neighbors to signal everyone to find their seats, or someone else’s before the beginning of service. I thought this signaled my victory in the matter of the particularly contested seat, but then the strangest thing occurred. Unable to stoop so low as to take one of the abundant, inferior seats in the church, the pink woman sat down in the floor next to the pew on which I sat. She remained there for the duration of the service. When the bell tolled the end of the hour signaling the end of our worship, I finally pushed myself up from the seat to make my exit. Before I could escape, however, she grabbed my arm and said, “Son, you happen to be one of the most stubborn men I have ever met and you should be ashamed of yourself for allowing a woman to sit on the floor while you took her seat.” “Ma’am,” I replied, “Sitting in the floor was your own choice.” She scoffed at my response and said, “What is your name?”, sounding less like she actually cared and more like she intended to later report me for theft of her square of the church pew and needed it for the police report. “Jesus,” I replied, and I watched the pink woman turn white with shock and make a mad dash for the restroom. A moment later, as I sat in my old truck, I heard the rhythmic tinkling of my cell phone in the console. “Hello, this is Gus, how may I help you?” I spoke into the receiver.