Doin' things better than they were done in the past.
I dunno.
Back in the day -
(Somehow TechnoBoy has felt me type this and I can feel the eyes rolling back in his head and hear his yet-to-happen sighs.
Yeah.
We're a weird family that way.)
but back in the day, we all piled into cars that had bench seats.
We slid, scrunched, and wedged ourselves into those two bench seats.
Back when the cars were actually big enough to hold 6 normal sized people.
Okay, okay.
I'll give you that.
We, as a society, have been supersized over the last 40 years. But the only bench seat in today's cars is in the back.
And it will only hold 1 normal adult contortionist, a 3 yr old, and a completely wetted-down Pomeranian.
Back in the day, I sat hip to hip and shoulder-to-shoulder with fellow travelers, as many as 8 or 9 (no Seat Belt Law then).
I was part of the group.
Part of the family that was squished into tufted cloth and vinyl with elegant squiggles running across it.
And since I, we, were closer,
we knew things about each other.
Things like favorite colors, teams, dreams, games, and songs.
And who had eaten garlic bread.
And who was lactose-intolerant.
Back then, bucket seats were viewed with narrowed, wary, untrusting eyes.
The reason being that bucket seats were found in those speed-limit-breaking, rabble-rousing cars driven by idiots and subversives -
young hot-rodders and college-teaching VW-Bug drivers.
But that was then.
Now . . . it's all bucket seats.
And here's one of the big problems with bucket seats:
The Car Companies do not care about the size of my bucket.
As long as the seat comfortably fits the pygmy population in our 10 largest cities, the Car Companies are quite happy to pocket the savings on unused foam and vinyl.
There's no more scrunching in the front seat.
Now we each have a bucket seat all to ourselves.
Bucket seats & captain chairs are found in the minivans.
Okay, yeah, there's a back bench seat. But that is exclusively reserved for the oldest, biggest, and most intimidating child, effectively making it a pretty big bucket seat.
And these present back seats-
The backseats of most cars today are really 2 bucket seats and a cupholder sold under the false advertising mantra as a "bench seat for 3".
Yep. 3.
When pigs fly.
"Hose down the Pomeranian, Martha. We gotta ride in the back.
That's okay. Leave it.
Murphy says he'll make a 2nd run and come back for the baby."
Bucket seats.
We have our space. We don't impose. We don't intrude. We don't touch.
I remember what I sat on in church back-in-the-day.
Yeah.
Bench seats.
They were called "pews".
No designated safe space zones.
Some Sundays I was able to sprawl out, almost reclining, only to be scrunched and crushed the next Sunday.
But everyone sacrificed their comfort so everyone could have a seat. We scrunched. We crammed.
It was more important to make room than to have room.
Even if things got uncomfortable. And a little too close.
Now, even the church has bucket seats.
A sanctuary full of bucket seats.
There's no scrunching anymore.
Not even on the Holidays.
I've got my seat.
My turf for worship.
My space.
I'm ready for God now.
Bring it on, Lord.
Bless me!
And if the sanctuary starts to fill up?
Hey, my seat goes from here to here and if you don't have room, weeeellllllll, there's a few chairs out in the foyer.
Knock yourself out.
And, for Pete's sake, get here a little earlier next time.
And that's when I hear Him say:
"Why don't you let them have
My seat?"
Oh.
Well.
I sit in my space, feeling embarrassed, not quite knowing what to do.
And, again, I hear His voice.
And He sounds very disappointed.
"There doesn't seem to be any room for Me, either."
I think I need to get back to that
"bench seat"-type of mindset.
Lord ... would You teach me to scrunch again?