Friday, September 3, 2010

Words, words, words!!!

One Chair

She stared at the chair for a long time. She couldn't believe it, the chair only had three legs. Three! She snatched the catalog off her bed to double check, and sure enough, comparing the chair's image and the actual chair sitting before her, she saw that, in the catalog -- the ideal version, the chair had four legs, not three. Or maybe not? She looked closer at the photo. She assumed that there was a fourth leg but the photo's angle obscured the fourth leg, which apparently, as she could clearly see now, never existed at all. Wait, no, impossible! All chairs had four legs. She wondered what kind of company would sell a three legged chair anyway.

She had looked forward to getting this chair for two whole agonizing weeks. Yes, agony is what the wait was like. Everyday she drove home as fast as she could to see if her new chair had arrived. She had the lone chair for so long. This addition was key but now, after so much waiting, pining, she still only had one chair. Well, one and three-fourths chairs to be precise. This would not do. It would not do at all. She had been planning on having guests, or at least one guest, a very special guest -- the checkout girl. She would sit in the old chair and her guest, the girl with the pretty eyes from the checkout, would sit in the new chair, and she would say to her, "Do you like my new chair?"

The checkout girl would respond politely and say, "Yes, this is a good chair." Or something like that, she didn't know her all that well really. The checkout girl only ever asked her how her day was going and smiled while ringing up the groceries. She once commented on how nice her sweater was but she knew it was ridiculous to assume that it was anything more than her being a nice checkout girl.

How could she invite anyone over and expect them to sit in a three legged chair? She grabbed the phone. She needed to talk to someone. A customer service representative, that was it. After pressing the corresponding buttons to reach the correct area of support she was greeted by a soft spoken but generally helpful sounding man.

Studying the four legged chair in the catalog, trying to spot that fourth leg, she said, "Hi, hello, your chair, the one I bought out of your catalog. It only has three legs."

"Does it? Well that won't do."

"Yes, only three. I need another leg. Could you send it to me please?"

"Well, can I get your first and last name, the product code, serial number, and the date of purchase?"

Her heart sunk when she heard these words. She had already tossed the packaging into the trash incinerator down the hall. It was gone, irretrievable. "I don't have those things. I burned them."

"Well, I'm sorry to hear that ma'am, but I need these items before I can send you the fourth leg."

She sat down in her old chair. It was red and dusty. It had been with her for seven years. Picking at the fraying fibers on the arm of the chair she said, "Well, can I just describe the chair to you?"

"I'm sorry, I need more information than that. You can send the chair back, well, no you can't, you burned the box."

"This chair was very important to me and you don't care."

"Oh, I'm sure it was and I do care. I have a chair of my own and I often think of it fondly."

"Are you mocking me?"

"No ma'am, my first child was born in that chair."

"Oh, that's, well, that's fine. Congratulations."

"Well, it was ten years ago, but thank you."

There was a pause as she tried to come up with a way to wrangle a fourth leg out of this conversation but she knew it was hopeless. She glanced at her new chair, where it sat lamely on the floor, unable to perform the one simple task expected of it. She thought about the checkout girl sitting in the chair, it seemed ridiculous now. How was she going to pose the question anyway? "Want to come over to my house and sit in my new chair?" Absurd! Clearly, she had not thought this through. She had not thought about it reasonably, no checkout girl ever wanted to be asked such things, to be put in such an awkward position. Thankfully, receiving this useless chair had given her reason to pause and consider her actions, sparing her the embarrassment. Despite the loss of $65.99, she recognized the blessing, and knew it was for the best. This chair was meant to have three legs, just as the checkout girl was meant to ask her how her day was, and she, at least for now, was meant to sit at home alone with her single chair.

The customer rep said, "Is there anything else?"

"Um, no, forget it." She hung up and sat, trying to decide what to do about the chair. She thought about going to the supermarket to buy some eggs, but she didn't need any more eggs. She already had five cartons. With no chair there would be no special guest. It was time to put her fantasies of checkout girls in new chairs and conversations about chairs to an end.

She stood up, grabbed the three legged chair, walked out of her apartment, down the hall, and into the trash room. The room was dimly lit and the floor was coated in a thin layer of gritty dust. The smell of uneaten pizza lingered in the air. She lifted the chair above her head and smashed it against the floor until all of the legs had broken off. Then she tossed the pieces down the chute, into the incinerator, forever ridding herself of the useless object and the notion of a visiting checkout girl with it. She went back to her apartment, sat down in her old chair, that, despite being old, was quite comfortable.


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