Monday, August 07, 2006

Unwilling to Endure Anymore Crane-Related Flatulence, Two Office Chairs Make A Suicide Pact, And Make Good On It. The Office Chair Saga Continues

Happy Monday folks.

Well, I hope you all were more productive than I was today. Aside from an hour of writing (during which I finished chapter 18, which means I only have two chapters to go before I finish the revised -- and mostly final -- draft of the Book), and a Skype conversation with our man in Taiwan, Mr. Nathan Hines, I was busy breaking office chairs. Not just one, mind you, the number at which most self-respecting chair breakers would be content with in a single day, but two. Here's a quick run down of how it went.

Chair One: I return to the office from the kitchen with my mini-Braves helmet freshly filled (about a third high) with salted peanuts, I drop into my office chair and am about to swivel it towards the desk when I hear a loud snap. I then begin my journey backward towards the ground. I reach the ground in short order and, luckily, without banging my enormous head into anything. I laugh a sad, jolly laugh at how big a fat ass I've obviously become, lift my bulk out of the chair and examine the damage. One of the five spokes at the base of the office chair has shattered beneath my weight. It's a done deal. Not repairable.

So I go around the desk to Peggy's desk, grab the massage chair my folks got me after my Samsonite chair broke earlier this year, and haul it around to my desk. I sit in it and get back to being unproductive.

Chair Two: I am leaning back in the chair. The little lever to the right beneath my seat is not set to recline, but after I hear a metallic snapping sound, suddenly I am reclining. I sit up again, worried I'm about to break another chair, put my weight on the right armrest so I can shift my weight away from the at-risk seatback, and the right armrest breaks right the hell off of my chair. Not so that it's dangling -- it's still attached, though only by one bolt instead of 3 -- but so that I can't lean back in the chair without risk of having the entire seat back come off.

So right now, I am sitting at my desk in an office chair that is essentially now a stool, looking over my monitor at two other broken office chairs, one leaning precariously against the closet door, and the other chair, the trusty Samsonite that broke many months ago, sits tucked in beneath the back of Peggy's desk. All of them casualties of my 6'6", 242 pound bulk being hurled onto them, into them, day after day after day. Oh well. I can't imagine breaking two chairs in one day in front of other people. I doubt one would ever live that down in an office environment.

Perhaps not in a blog environment either, who knows. Anyway, more tomorrow.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good grief Brian, don't think it is you, it is your fathers inability to think quality and value over price. He is constantly telling his customers,"you get what you pay for", but alas he never takes his own advice. Make him buy a decent one this time.

M

Anonymous said...

I've never owned as many chairs as you've broken. I hope you feel good about that. Because people in Taiwan would kill for those chairs you're breaking and discarding as trash. Would KILL.

Back me up on this, Hinesy.