Some Assembly Required

Alerted to a big sale at Big Lots, I headed there with my gift and discount card in hand. I decided to get a new office chair.

However, when I saw that I needed to assemble it myself, I had serious doubts, despite the assurance of an employee that they were simple. "Yeah, but simple enough for Lynne?" Obviously she doesn't know my skill set is very limited (and I hate the phrase "skill set"). When I opened the box, I had even more doubts.

There were many obstacles to assembly, including curious cats who each needed to inspect the empty box and the many chair pieces. Then there were the dogs who needed to be exactly where I was on the floor for an impromptu wrestling match.

Despite repeatedly saying, "I can't work like this, People!" (wrong audience for one thing), I made progress.

The directions said it could be put together in 30 minutes. Miraculously, I finished it just under an hour.

Look! It's the Executive Office Chair with High Back. And I'm sitting in it right now and it hasn't fallen apart. Not yet anyway.

However, it is only right that we take a moment to acknowledge the chair that The Executive is replacing. It's never had a name. I guess if it did it would be something like "Reuben Kincaid" because I'm pretty sure that this chair is Partridge Family era.

This chair was salvaged from the Admissions Office dumpster twice. Darren retrieved it the first time and gave it a home in his tiny office. Always unreliable, it threw many people out of it if they did much beyond sit quietly in a rigid upright position. No leaning - absolutely not! It tossed Darren over more than a few times, as well as many coworkers, visitors to the university, professors, and the director of Financial Aid (I was there for that one). Then when Darren left Admissions, they were going to throw the chair out (again), but Darren brought it to live on the Gold Coast. It's been here ever since.

So far it's lived longer than all the nine lives of all the cats. I'm not quite sure what to do with it. Maybe it will go into permanent retirement in the upstairs abyss. Or maybe I'll put it outside to see if someone wants to rescue it one more time. Old Reuben may still have some life left in it.