Don’t sit at the corner of a table if you’re unmarried, or you’ll never marry

[Scene: A cozy Moscow apartment, snow falling softly outside. Anya and Lena are drinking tea at the kitchen table after dinner.]

Anya:
Pushes Lena’s chair a little to the side.
Lena, don’t sit at the corner! Seriously! Move to the side—quickly!

Lena (raising an eyebrow):
Anya, come on. Not this again. Are you really worried I’ll be single forever because of a table corner?

Anya (earnest):
Yes! That’s exactly the belief. If you sit at the corner of the table, you won’t get married. It’s not just me—my babushka swore by it. She used to throw a napkin over the corner if anyone sat there, like it was radioactive or something.

Lena (laughing):
Maybe your babushka was just clever and didn’t want to add an extra plate. Economic superstition.

Anya (mock offended):
Don’t mock Babushka Zina! She knew things. You know she predicted my cousin Dima’s divorce just from how the tea leaves clumped together.

Lena:
Or maybe because Dima married a woman he met at a karaoke bar in Sochi after two days?

Anya:
Still. Tea leaves.

Lena (grinning):
Okay, but let’s be real. Sitting at the corner of a table can’t cause you to stay single. If that were true, IKEA would be single-handedly ruining love lives.

Anya:
Look, I know it sounds silly, but traditions carry energy. Think about it—why do so many people say it? There must be something to it.

Lena:
It’s called cultural inertia. People pass things down without questioning them. Like how people used to believe sneezing meant your soul was escaping.

Anya:
Maybe it was escaping! That’s why we say “Bless you.”

Lena:
Exactly. Superstition. No scientific basis. No correlation. I sat at corners my whole life, and I’ve dated more than most of our high school class combined.

Anya (smirking):
Yes, but have any of those turned into marriage?

Lena (pauses):
Touché. But that’s more about my taste in people than table geometry.

Anya (laughing):
I’m just saying—why risk it? Move your chair, and maybe Mr. Right appears sooner.

Lena (pretending to look under the table):
Is he hiding under the table, waiting for optimal chair alignment?

Anya (giggles):
Stranger things have happened in Russia.

Lena:
Look, Anya, I love you, but you believe in every superstition. You won’t whistle indoors, you flip a mirror if someone forgets something, and once you threw salt over your shoulder and hit me in the eye.

Anya:
Better your eye than seven years of bad luck.

Lena (deadpan):
I still had to wear a patch for two days.

Anya:
Beauty is pain. And luck insurance.

Lena:
Okay, okay. Let me ask you this. If you truly believed this corner-sitting thing, would you stop someone else from sitting there—even if they didn’t believe in it?

Anya:
Of course! I don’t want their future ruined!

Lena:
But isn’t it a bit unfair to impose it on them when it’s based on belief, not fact?

Anya (pauses, thoughtful):
Hmm. Maybe. But if something’s protected me, even in little ways, I feel like I should pass it on.

Lena:
Fair enough. I just think it’s important to distinguish comfort rituals from causality. Like, I tap the side of a plane before boarding—not because I think it helps, but because it calms me. Superstition is fine, as long as we don’t let it override reason.

Anya (nodding slowly):
Maybe I’m not ready to give up my tea-leaf-reading Babushka wisdom just yet. But I guess I could stop panicking every time you sit at a corner.

Lena (sips tea):
Deal. And I’ll avoid corner chairs during your wedding planning… just to be safe.

Anya (grins):
You’ll be my maid of honor. Just nowhere near a corner.