When you sit right down in the middle of yourself
You’re gonna wanna have a comfortable chair
— the prophet ani difranco
—

Longtime readers will recall it was all going to be so simple. We have to buy a chair. We had decided on a fine specimen at Costly Plus. It sorta matches our current chair if you’ve been drinking a lot, and mostly, we would be done. Which is really all we want at this point. That, and a Medium Chocolate Frosty, which I don’t think they sell.

We go into the store, which is in Warp Speed Christmas mode. A cheery clerk greets us. I give my best holiday scowl. Mo surveys the free coffee line. We all have our priorities, I suppose. We race back to the Chair Department. And there it is.

It looks just like the photo, only bigger and in three dimensions. Mo sits in it and is quite happy. It looks great. Some assembly required, but what’s the fun of Christmas without assembling a chair on Christmas Eve. But then we look at the label.

It’s made out of something called “Not Really Leather You Moron.”

I whip out the phone and start reading reviews. Remember back in the days of the pioneers when you could just buy stuff without research? The consensus seems to be that “not really leather” isn’t really leather and will make you fall out of favor with the Hipster crowd. I’ve worked too hard for that. So WE LEAVE WITHOUT A CHAIR!

We go home, and my spirit is broken. Mo gamely goes to the Goodwill, but that always makes me think of Pizza on Earth and Goodwill Toward Men. She says they have recliners, but none have a lighted beer can holder, so what’s the point?

She mails me another photo from somewhere else. I assume at this point she has gone insane and wants to buy an ugly chair to kill me in case the cadmium doesn’t kick in soon. I veto, and make plans to eat out more.

As luck would have it, our pal Char stops by a bit later. She’s 86 and knows a bargain when she sees one. And she saw one. It’s a big chair at a consignment store. It may or may not come with an elderly gentleman who was sitting on it when she was there. And it’s only SIXTY BUCKS!!! She insists we must buy it. Possibly because she hopes the elderly gent will still be on it. That Char is a frisky one.

I have to go to work, so Mo goes. I tell her whatever. A few minutes later, as I’m dodging freeway traffic, she sends me a photo. The chair is spectacularly wide. Like big enough for two people to sit on it at the same time, or one if the elderly gent is still there.

She wants to know what I think. I think it’s big. I’m so tired of big. I ask her what she thinks. She asks what I think again. I ask what she thinks. She asks what I think a 17th time. I tell her I’m skeptical of big. And suede. And hiring an oil company CEO pal of Putin as secretary of state. Which didn’t really fit into the conversation, but allowed me to rant. And that was that.

In summary: We have no chair. Char has no boyfriend. We have no plan. And there are only 20 days left in the Great Chair Hunt of 2016, which I assume has to conclude by the end of the year because adding a second year to the headline would be too much trouble.

Mo says she has retired from the chair business. If I want a chair I can get it myself.

Maybe they sell chairs at Wendy’s …