Seating arrangements

Today Chris and I made the terrible mistake of sitting by my parents.
We came in a little late and squeezed ourselves into the row near the back with Mom and Dad. I saw next to my Dad, with Chris to my right on the end.

Pretty soon an usher came over and tapped Chris. Chris stepped out, and I could see that an elderly woman was waiting in the aisle.
I thought that maybe she had decided to displace the six tightly packed people in order to make her way to the far left of the pew. Odd, but, okay.
So, when Chris stepped out I stepped out, too. And looked at my Dad.
At some point in this commotion, the woman gave up and went the 20 or so steps to go around to the other end of the pew and sit in an empty seat.

I thought it was an example of bad ushing. The row in front of us and the row behind us had empty seats.

When I said something to Chris he said that the usher had motioned and conveyed to him that the women wanted his seat. -- Not to get past us to a free seat. Not to go to the next row where there was an empty seat.-- No, she wanted HIS seat.