DEAR ABBY: Last night, I went to the movies and took an aisle seat in the back row. Two different couples came in late, and each one asked me to move over so they could sit together. I said, "I got here early, and I like this seat." I did not go on to explain that I have a torn tendon in my knee and needed the seat in order to stretch my leg.
They became upset and were very rude. If the seats were so important, they could have arrived early or on time.
Abby, my husband died in an airplane crash many years ago. I would give anything to have my husband in the same theater, the same city, the same planet! Couldn't those people spend two hours separated by one seat from their spouse? -- MARSHA IN SAUSALITO, CALIF.
DEAR MARSHA: Please accept my sympathy for the tragic loss of your husband. Sometimes it isn't what you say to people, but the tone in which it is said. Perhaps if you had been less terse in your reply to the couples who asked you to move over, they would not have become hostile.