My Worst Fear Confirmed

I've had a hunch for a long time. Some days I'm almost positive, but then on other days I'm just as sure I must be wrong. But today I found out for sure.

In Romania, to be without a husband is strange. "Fara sot" = odd.

Let me back up and explain...

For the moment, I have the responsibility of planning games for Friday night youth meetings at church (I know, I know...the least likely person for this job, but I digress). For one of tonight's games, we needed two teams. Since the teens were already assigned numbers for another purpose, I decided to just use their numbers to form teams. Team 1 - those with even numbers. Team 2 - those with odd numbers. To make sure I was prepared, I asked Pastor Nicu beforehand how to say "even numbers" and "odd numbers" (funny how I've never needed to use these terms in the last two years).

Turns out that the term for an even number is "number with a husband" and an odd number is a "number without a husband." So there you have it...in Romania, to be odd is to be without a husband. ;-)

Seriously, I know a lot of single Romanians, many of them significantly older than I am. Our church seems to have an inordinate number of single women & no single adult guys (they are all working in Italy, Ireland, Spain, the US...anywhere but here). A visitor from the US jokingly offered to either return next year with all of his single guy friends or set up a website entitled "The Single Girls of Libertatii".

But none of them are quite as "odd" as I since they all live at home with their parents. Apparently mom & dad's house here is something like the singles' group at my church in the US - the only way out is either through marriage or death!