Armin benefitted throughout his life from a condition that caused him to look at the next person to the left of whomever he was addressing. When a policeman ticketed Armin's car just as Armin was running up, he yelled at the bewildered woman next to him on the streets, avoiding a greater charge.

He once explained an esoteric element of physics, completely wrongly, to the person at the next table instead of his conversation partner. The woman went on to patent a very successful product on her misunderstanding of the principle, and gave Armin half the credit and the profit.

Meeting Armin's future wife was a matter of trying to ask out the woman he desired and getting a date with the surprised woman next over. When they had a child, the maternity ward nurses frequently corrected him as to which child was his.

In a consulting job, Armin tried to fire an extraneous employee for "inappropriate use of company resources." The next employee over demanded to know how Armin had discovered her peculation.

And naturally, when Death came for him, Armin made an eloquent argument to prolong his life... to the child beside him. Death took him without delay.