Shoes’s Chair

Write what’s in front of you.

Quite a while ago, years now, I thought to buy a new chair for my PC, a new computer chair, a place where I spend so much time escaping and then fashioning thoughts, ideas, words strung and even sometimes sung together. This was before my tunes though and before the place I live at now with all the glorious madness of assorted fur and feather. It was my first place back on my own, a place and thing that suits me better however much lonely that might sound. But the always PC chair was his, the one with a thin Steelers blanket (man, that blanket could use a turn in the washer then … and now). Then Shoes passed away not too long into this new stay and got me to words on his chair at this passing and even enlightened me to wonder but it became a tough sit then without that reminder and any past remembered funny talk to your cat argument (he was only somewhat a lap cat so the chair couldn’t really be shared for too long, it was a he or me, though he was Ok with just laying in front of the keyboard, or somewhere on my desk, once I plopped him down away from his chair, like Mimi the Quirky now).

So I thought to buy something new as according to an ad I’d heard from Staples (I do radio, and no matter how much I may try to ignore ads simply to know I have, on the internet especially, some still seep through). I even enlisted a friend for the assist. I don’t know why but it just seemed that I should. It was unnecessary, but maybe I could claim I might need help to the car? Really, it was just an attempt at a normalcy, or something close, that I had just left, most of the leaving of my own accord mind you, but an attempt. A partner to guide me on something that really needed no guiding. It was just a chair. But the company was nice. Really nice.

Simple buying of things is easy as a single guy, the only list you have is your own, but buying a new chair, a not Shoes chair, seemed a major purchase to me as my paycheck belied so Beth came along to make sure I got it right. Though, like I said, it wasn’t really necessary but then again I’m remembering buying a chair with her in tow so it obviously was. Friends.

It’s got a tall back, is somewhat plush compared to the Shoes’s chair non-plush short hard back, allows me to lean with a rested head, sometimes even to accidentally nod off like that suburban scene where the kids tell mom “He’s asleep” after her annoyance of repeated calls being ignored.

It’s cat scratched now, really cat scratched, pockmarked and torn with too many claw points to count and I drape it with that one solitary sheet from a set of sheets that is no longer a set but you’re damned to remember where the rest of it went or even to question if you ever had the full set in the first place.  The faux whatever it is, that attempt at “leather” maybe, is cold and plastic so the sheet helps for the comfort, but the tall head is the selling point. Plastic feel or not, it still has a comfy enough fill for that lean.

After putting it together in that first little place on my own again, feeling all industrious with the following of the directions I was so proud to not need eventually, and with only a couple of pieces left over (maybe that’s that bit of halt on the turn and I should have paid more direction attention) I thought of tossing Shoes’s chair, not just the toss of a sad reminder but because who needs two computer chairs? Right?

But the right reminders should never get tossed, no lame justification at the thought.

Shoey, your computer chair is still here, it’s the preferred chair of any of the girls and mine, hard backed and short head it may be, not much lean, and still with your thin Steelers blanket covering it, one still always in need of a wash that I never remember to grab in my weekly throw of extra shit in the hamper.

But it’s still here.

I mean, who can’t use two computer chairs? Right?

That “new” chair has always been just a backup my friend. Miss ya kid.