By Lionel Ashgrove, Church Calendar Correspondent

WILLOW BEND — The fellowship hall at Cedar Knoll Community Church holds 38 brown folding tables, and according to longtime members, 37 of them are out to get you.

The 38th, a gently scuffed six-footer known around the building simply as "Table Nine," folds and unfolds without catching a single knuckle. It is now reserved every weekend through the spring of 2029.

"People don't believe me until they try it," said facilities volunteer Gordon Pruitt, 68, who discovered the table's unusual temperament during a 2019 spaghetti dinner. "You flip the legs, they click, and nothing happens to you. No yelp. No hopping around the kitchen. I sat down on a stack of chairs and just looked at it for a while."

Word spread quickly. Within a month, the women's Bible study had asked for Table Nine every Tuesday. The men's breakfast claimed it for the first Saturday of each month. The quilting circle submitted a request in writing, on letterhead, which church staff say had never happened before.

By 2022, the church office had started a reservation binder. That binder has since grown to three binders, held together with a bungee cord and stored in a locked drawer beside the communion trays.

"I've had a funeral luncheon and a baby shower ask for it on the same afternoon," said office administrator Denise Okafor-Lund. "I'm not proud of it, but I put the baby shower on Table Nine and gave the luncheon the two tables with the newest rubber feet. Everybody was gracious. Mostly."

The remaining 37 tables have not been retired, though members have given most of them names. Table Four is called "The Snapper." Table Twenty-Two is called "Deacon Ray's Thumb," after an incident at the 2017 chili cook-off that Deacon Ray still prefers not to discuss. One table near the stage is labeled only with a strip of masking tape that reads "TWO PEOPLE, NO RINGS."

Youth pastor Kendra Voss has trained her middle schoolers to unfold the older tables in pairs, counting down from three and stepping back "like you're opening a jar of pickles somebody else already tried." She said attendance at setup nights has never been better. "It's the most focused they are all week," she said.

Efforts to buy more tables like Table Nine have failed. The building committee tracked down the manufacturer's model number, only to learn the company stopped making that design in 1994 and now sells patio umbrellas. A proposal to have Table Nine professionally studied was tabled, using one of the other tables, after a brief and noisy demonstration.

The church council has since adopted a new policy limiting each ministry to two Table Nine reservations per quarter, with weddings and the annual pie auction exempt. Appeals go to a three-person panel that meets, by tradition, around Table Nine.

At press time, the trustees had voted to insure the table, and an anonymous member had quietly signed up for the open slot on Easter Sunday 2029 under the name "Just Need It For a Minute."