I need an new chair
My bum's numb from sitting in this one for too long.
To be fair, this chair owes me nothing. I bought it in a liquidation sale in Borrowstounness in 1992, along with my filing cabinet* and, if memory serves, a couple of axes and an arc welder. The office stuff came from a computer sales company that had folded in the spectacular way that such enterprises used to back then - the filing cabinet was still full of important and confidential documents when I got it back home.
I think I bid about £5 for the chair, although it might have been £10. It was one of about two dozen non-descript typists chairs - I couldn't compete with the bidder who paid twenty-five quid for the director's leather number.
It tilts, swivels and goes up and down at the pull of a lever (or at least it used to; now it's a bit arthritic), and when I lean back it groans like someone torturing crows. The padding in the seat has long since surrendered to the weight of my backside, and the fabric is covered in little beige and white dog hairs. Something that may be biscuit crumbs has worked its way into the cracks.
This chair's followed me from Lothian to Fife, up to Aberdeen and back to Fife, to Edinburgh and on down to Wales. I dread to think of the hours I've spent sitting in it, cogitating, pondering or just plain staring into the distance with a vacant idiot grin on my face. I can't even begin to estimate the number of words it's seen me write. Six novels and a travel book for starters, more than thirty short stories as well as countless graphic novels and comic scripts. I've read many a comic and not a few novels in it's comforting embrace; played endless incomprehensible tunes on my guitar; learned to play the penny whistle badly.
I've even used it for paying work; building web applications from its sturdy foundations; phoning clients, suppliers, collaborators. From this chair I've planned the house I was going to build; and it was sitting in this chair that I finally had to put that dream to bed. There are things too numerous to mention that I've done in this chair, and, perhaps, things too personal too. We have no secrets my chair and I, we're old friends.
But now it's giving me a numb bum, a stiff back and pain across both shoulders that no amount of adjustment can alleviate.
Can this really be the end? Will I have to get rid of my faithful retainer and replace it with a younger, more ergonomic model? It will be a sad day, but I think it may be coming soon.
which came first, the dog or the chair?****
*The filing cabinet was a steal - literally. I bid for the wrong one and ended up with a broken and twisted heap of junk. While no-one was looking, my brother swapped the lot number sticker with a better one, and we went off with that.**
** Though of course this story's not true. My brother being an upstanding pillar of the community and all that. No it was our friend Francis who did the deed (without our knowledge, of course), and he's dead now.***
***Which isn't poetic justice, or revenge or anything, just the sad truth.
****The chair, by about three months.
To be fair, this chair owes me nothing. I bought it in a liquidation sale in Borrowstounness in 1992, along with my filing cabinet* and, if memory serves, a couple of axes and an arc welder. The office stuff came from a computer sales company that had folded in the spectacular way that such enterprises used to back then - the filing cabinet was still full of important and confidential documents when I got it back home.
I think I bid about £5 for the chair, although it might have been £10. It was one of about two dozen non-descript typists chairs - I couldn't compete with the bidder who paid twenty-five quid for the director's leather number.
It tilts, swivels and goes up and down at the pull of a lever (or at least it used to; now it's a bit arthritic), and when I lean back it groans like someone torturing crows. The padding in the seat has long since surrendered to the weight of my backside, and the fabric is covered in little beige and white dog hairs. Something that may be biscuit crumbs has worked its way into the cracks.
This chair's followed me from Lothian to Fife, up to Aberdeen and back to Fife, to Edinburgh and on down to Wales. I dread to think of the hours I've spent sitting in it, cogitating, pondering or just plain staring into the distance with a vacant idiot grin on my face. I can't even begin to estimate the number of words it's seen me write. Six novels and a travel book for starters, more than thirty short stories as well as countless graphic novels and comic scripts. I've read many a comic and not a few novels in it's comforting embrace; played endless incomprehensible tunes on my guitar; learned to play the penny whistle badly.
I've even used it for paying work; building web applications from its sturdy foundations; phoning clients, suppliers, collaborators. From this chair I've planned the house I was going to build; and it was sitting in this chair that I finally had to put that dream to bed. There are things too numerous to mention that I've done in this chair, and, perhaps, things too personal too. We have no secrets my chair and I, we're old friends.
But now it's giving me a numb bum, a stiff back and pain across both shoulders that no amount of adjustment can alleviate.
Can this really be the end? Will I have to get rid of my faithful retainer and replace it with a younger, more ergonomic model? It will be a sad day, but I think it may be coming soon.
which came first, the dog or the chair?**** ** Though of course this story's not true. My brother being an upstanding pillar of the community and all that. No it was our friend Francis who did the deed (without our knowledge, of course), and he's dead now.***
***Which isn't poetic justice, or revenge or anything, just the sad truth.
****The chair, by about three months.
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