First of all, it wasn’t my idea to get an office chair.  The one I’ve got is slowly crippling me but it’s slowly so I thought that was the better alternative, being as pecuniary (read: cheap) as I am.  And it still has a few bolts that haven’t dropped out so I thought I was okay for the nonce.  However, I miss-thought.  With Eunice, no one is okay for the nonce.  For her, the nonce is unacceptable.  In fact, the longest we’ve had the nonce stay at our house was three days.  (This column is going to mess with the heads of a lot of kids who know the Nonce as an L.A. hip-hop duo.)  The LZ-Boy in the living room is the only comfortable chair I have, but only good for sleeping or watching TV. It was the perfect time to test Amazon’s 2-day free delivery but after rock-paper-scissors, (2 out of 3), Eunice won again..

So there we were, trekking that vast airplane hangar known as Costco, looking for office furniture country.  (Did I say I’m still not altogether on board about this?  Never mind.  It gets worse.)  Anyway, we split up, Eunice to find a chair while I’m off testing samples of foods, whatever I can find.  (Usually, I skip two meals to shop here.)  Eunice finds me, wants me to test a chair. It seems okay, only mildly out of our budget; then she pushes me off to take a hearing test.  I tell her Kaiser won’t like it but she doesn’t hear me.  Apparently I haven’t been responding to her beck and call as chop-chop as she expects.  So I leave her to the paperwork and about twenty minutes later, I try to hunt her down with my hearing test scans.  It turns out her becks are fine, it’s her calls I’m missing. Well, she’s harped on that before, too when I’ve missed her cell phone calls.  (How many times have I had to delete old VM “Where are you?” messages.) 

But this day, not finding her, I go out to wait by the car when she calls.  Then it rings, but in the blazing sun, I can’t see the screen to answer it.  Then she arrives,  a little steamed; she had to put the chair into the car herself.  I turn around and see lodged in the back a box the size of a small Volkswagen.  With a sigh of relief, I say, “Thank God, it’s already put together.  I was afraid you would--”

“No,” she says, “that’s something you’re going to have to do.”

“I’m gonna WHAT?  NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!”

(Will the chair be built?  Will there be old man blood?  Tune in for the exciting conclusion.)

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