Not on my bench

I told a pregnant woman to get off my bench before a tennis match the other day, and I think I am the sane one. Let me explain…

It was the finals match in a tournament I had been competing in for several weeks. After playing some of my worst tennis ever, I managed to steal 5 wins and make it to the finals. Moments before the match begins, I notice a woman sitting on my bench. It was not my woman, not a woman I’ve ever seen before, and there wasn’t a single reason for her to be there. 

So I walked up to her politely and said, “You are not going to sit there, right?” 

It was innocent, but a serious question. The match was about to begin, and next to my Yonex bag was a woman and a very small space to sit. I don’t even know if the little toy character that lives on my bag could comfortably sit in the space left on the bench. 

To my surprise, she answered, “Why not?” 

I hadn’t thought about that. My pre-match ritual didn’t really cover debating with a woman I had never seen before about whether I could sit on my bench. But she had a point. I suppose there was no law in the world that said she couldn’t sit there. I also learned that the woman was my opponent's wife. The clues were starting to come together, but my original thought hasn’t wavered. 

Could she not sit anywhere in the entire tennis center other than my bench?

I didn’t have a great answer to her question, but I didn’t think I needed one. I told her because during a match, I need my bench to sit, to think, to curse at myself when I shank a forehand to lose a game. I didn’t need a great answer. It was my bench. 

So I asked her if any of the other benches would suffice. Ideally, the set of bleachers on which my own wife was sitting. If it was good enough for my wife, surely this lady could stick her butt cheeks on those metal slabs as opposed to my metal slabs located on the tennis court I would be playing on. 

I honestly didn’t think I was in a war of sorts. I thought this was a clear miscommunication that would eventually end with a laugh and a chuckle. 

But then she checkmated me. She said the words no argumentative guy wants to hear in the heat of a light verbal battle. 

“Well, I am pregnant. And the bleachers don’t have back portions to rest my back.” 

Wowza.

All I wanted to do was prepare my mind for the tennis match, and now I was in a Seinfeld skit. Like Larry David himself, I was becoming a smuck in society, and on top of that, I was going to have to stand during changeovers during this tennis match. 

Obviously, I was taken aback. Anything I said next would be the wrong answer. So I went with my gut. 

“Congratulations!” I said. I sort of meant it. I never met this woman before, but she had just delivered the news that she was to have her first child. What type of man would I be if I didn’t acknowledge life itself? 

But after her brief baby shower on the court ended, I still came to the realization that a pregnant woman didn’t need to be on my bench. She wasn’t giving birth. She was barely showing. Either she was no more than a month pregnant, or she was having the world's tiniest baby. 

Either way, she and her tiny baby needed to find somewhere else to sit. 

And finally, the voice of reason. Her husband. A man of sense and reason came to my rescue. The man I would be battling for the next two hours asked her to move to a bench with a back seat. She got up, gave me the death stare, and cozied up onto her new bench, where she would curse me out under her breath for the next two hours. 

But my bench was empty. And it was a good bench. A comfortable bench. 

My bench.