lindsayliveshere.org

A chair and bolts

One of our kitchen chairs looks like a chair, four legs, back and seat, etc, but when you sit on it, the legs go trapezoidal, it leans dramatically to the right, and if you are not careful you will fall to the floor. Two bolts rusted off the back on the left side, causing the improbable lean. When this first happened I thought I would throw the chair out. But there were considerations. It was given to me by Amanda’s mother-in-law as part of a white vintage 1950s kitchenette set (chrome! vinyl!) that has been the center of my bare bones furniture collection since I first moved to Chicago in 2004. Also Kevin said he maybe wanted the chair for a play.

So the chair stayed in the office, where it was banned from use, and is now (somehow) back around our table again. It looks like the other chairs. They each have their qualities — one has a yellow paint stain on the back from when Kevin painted our place, one has a ripped seat cushion, one has no problems to speak of — it’s the Good Chair and I bet the other chairs resent it. I should be able to tell the tippy chair from the others. But Tippy Chair looks so much like the Good Chair until you put your weight on it.

I should probably move it, probably relegate back to the office or leave it out on the curb, but for some reason it’s still here, posing with all the rest, and I’m sitting on the very edge, legs crossed, balancing.