So here is a story I have been meaning to tell for a while. It is a story about my chair, a chair story if you will. The entire story is about a chair so if you’re looking for a tale about something else then I would advise you to jog on, like a couple of sea lions, because it ain’t happening sunshine.
Once I was a person without a chair and without some level of warning I became a one people with a chair. How chairs come into your life I cannot say. Sometimes you get given them, sometimes you find them in shops and they’re the right kind of sitting device, that perfectly compliment your own particular exterior, that you have to buy them or regret it for the rest of your life. So there I was, a young man with a chair, sitting like a sitting person should. It dawned on me though that despite the right level of comfort and chair-intensity that there was something missing.
Typical, right? “Oh the problem with your generation is that you are never satisfied. Look at everything you have and it is still not enough.” Whilst that is true, no matter what I did there was something gnawing at the back of my ears that I could not put my finger on. What was it that I needed? A god damn foot stool, that is what I needed. This chair needed the perfect companion though, I could not settle for any old Johnny two foot-putter.
Fast forward eight hundred years later. After developing the ability to not only halt my ageing process but also travel to the far reaches of space in my custom-built Grimmy 101 Space Hulk Meat Vestibule, I stopped getting older and flew to the end of the galaxy. It took a while, hence the 800 years. When I got there though I was vastly disappointed. Despite plenty of signs boasting about this and that there were absolutely no furniture shops, not even a charity shop with thirty copies of ‘Fifty Shades of Gray’ stacked up in the corner. My chair looked even more glum that my poor viso/volto did. I was about to flip the spinsh retractor into reverse when I noticed a rubbish tip at the end of the street. I had nothing to lose so I walked over, fearing the worst yet secretly hoping for the best.
There it was. It was staring me in the eyes (which pair of eyes I cannot recall), a footstool I could not recall every seeing in my extended life. Sure, it had taken 834 years to find it and it was worth waiting for. This the story of me and my chair, my chair story, and it’s also a little bit about a footstool. It’s my chair footstool science-fiction search story. I hope you enjoyed it.
13 comments on “My Chair Story”
This reminds me of something that happened in my life. Did I ever tell you about the footstool that goes with my blue chair, that took me 14 years to find? I can tell you it now if you like.
No, you’ve never mentioned it in my entire life. What’s this about a footstool?
Well, in 2004, I bought a comfortable blue chair from Ikea and put it in my room at my student house. It was wonderful. I spent more time in that, with my laptop, than I did sitting at my desk or in the living room downstairs. I wrote my dissertation in that chair. But my room was small, so I reluctantly said no to the matching footstool that would have elevated it from “comfortable chair” to “the best seating in the world”. I told everyone I’d go back and get the footstool when I moved out, and then my life would be complete.
When I went back for it, they no longer sold the chair or the footstool in blue. And a year after that they stopped making and selling the chair altogether. But I don’t give up easily, and every now and then I’d rummage around on Gumtree and search through eBay listings to find a matching blue footstool. None ever came up. The chairs did come up sometimes, but very rarely in blue. The chairs sometimes came up with a footstool, but I didn’t want another chair and I never found a pair in blue anyway. The footstools on their own never came up at all.
Until, that is, Monday the 26th February 2018, when I had a look on eBay for probably the first time in a year or more, and one came up. A blue footstool. On its own. Clean. Fully intact. £20. Collection only from a London suburb.
I can’t tell you how excited I was. If I hadn’t been sitting at my desk at work I think I would have screamed. After I had danced around the room for a little bit, I bought it.
Can I have a précis version, please?
Sure.
In 2004, I bought a blue chair but my room was too small for the matching footstool. When I went back for it, they no longer sold the chair or the footstool in blue.
In February 2018, I looked on eBay and one came up for £20. I bought it.
That’s much better.
I wish you would have told me about this foot stool before. Footstool? Sootftool? It would have been such a conversation!
I know. I should be more open about it. I feel like I’ve been bottling it up for a long time. That’s why you’re such a good footstool therapist. You’ve got your fingers right in to my footstoolery and dug out all the goodness.
I… I did what now?
Don’t you dare be spreading rumours like that, sun hag!
Who are you calling a sun hag? I’m no sun hag. If anything I’m a shade hag.
Besides, it was meant to be a compliment. If you didn’t want to be a footstool therapist why did you do the course?
You’re such a sun hag.
Your face is a sun hag and your fingers have diddled the crevices of my footstool. So there.
Take your rambunctious ad-libbed scandalous pieces of lies and get out of my viso/volto, you sun hag.
I’ll get out of your vi/vo just as soon as you get your digits out of my pouffe.