Friday, June 24, 2016

The Devil's Throne

Val misses her dark basement lair.

My nightly blog posts have been coming to you from the Holiday Inn Express. Don't get me started on this one. Though new, it can't hold a candle to the one in Columbia, Missouri. Anyhoo...I miss my dark basement lair. The heater that burns my foot-skin through my Croc-holes. The close proximity to my go-fer, The Pony, on his cheap basement couch. My best old Christmas present ever, my red office chair.

Even though my red office chair is starting to lose the plastic off its metal arms, it is quite comfortable. Just the right height. Adjustable if my back is tweaked from being an old lady. The chair provided by the Holiday Inn Express is also adjustable. If you dare.

Take a gander at this contraption:


Oh, it's modern. It's visually appealing. With easy upkeep. But it is not functional for Val. Those wheels ain't made for rollin'. Not on carpet, anyway. You'd best have that baby right up to where you want it, and turn it sideways to sit, then pivot your legs under the desk. Because you ain't goin' nowhere if you try to roll. Also, that leather or fake-leather or pleather or whatever it is makes your butt sweat.

But the most dangerous and annoying quality of this chair is that if you lean back just the least little bit, IT TRIES TO TURN OVER BACKWARDS! Uh huh. Just get your center of gravity back a tiny bit, and over you go! Or at least you FEEL like you're going over. It happens when you sit down, too. So you must be extra cautious, or put it up against the bed, and then try to make those five wheels roll you to the desk. I do not advise that method. You probably need a teenage boy called The Pony to stand behind you and make sure it doesn't tip over. But don't ask him to adjust the chair with that shiny lever that you can't see down below the right arm. He will tell you he doesn't want to mess with it and risk throwing you out of the chair.

I call this ill-conceived contraption THE DEVIL'S THRONE.

I think Hick would agree.




10 comments:

  1. I totally understand your love for an old chair. Years ago when I had a studio downtown I encountered a bum rolling a chair down the street. He saw me admiring it and told me he fished it out of a dumpster and I could have it for five bucks. It looked like Captain Kirk's chair from Star Trek. I bought it and still have that chair and sit in it every day, even though it's falling apart.

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    1. I even have a new chair from two Christmases ago that Hick and the boys got me. It's fancier, leather (real or fake, I'm not sure)with silver metal and padded arms. A real executive model. BUT...the seat is really long. Like too long for my legs from hip to knee. I can't sit back comfortably, but I can perch near the front and not lean back. My old chair is a better fit, raggedy as it may be.

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  2. Looks to me like it was built to accomodate Kim Kardashian's rear . . . uh . . . porch.

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    1. She would tip that thing over and go spinning like a midway ride operated by a drunken carny! The least little shift of weight toward the back set it off, folding back quicker than a 17-year-old's bucket seat on prom night.

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  3. I need a footstool with my desk chair. I understand.

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  4. I like my chair at my desk. I can tip it back at just the right angle for a nap. My check-in counter is high enough to hide me, so that when I hear the door, I just sit up nonchalantly. HeWho ruined my last chair with his constant adjustments. He finally adjusted it so much that the seat would be at a normal height, until I sat in it. Then it would collapse to the lowest height .... suddenly and without warning. He put the chair together, and as always happens when he assembles something, there were parts leftover. He always refers to them as "extra" parts. Maybe the assembler of that chair thought some parts were "extra".

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    1. I don't know why they even pack instructions in stuff like that. The women aren't going to put them together, and the men aren't going to read the instructions.

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