Best laid plans, take two.

So you know that we are having some work done.

Not on my face!

On our house!

So one of the things that I thought was, what a great time to get my chair reupholstered.  So the husband  and I schlepped to Fabric Farms - oh, home of the deep discount upholstery fabric, and get this done while we have the house emptied out for the new floors.  I thought we were clever.

Let me regress - the chair is a club chair that my mother gave me 25 years ago following the night I was run over by a drunk driver.  Oh, didn't I tell you about that?

Well, let's regress some more. On January 27, 1986, I - along with two friends - to take a "mixology course" at OSU as part of their CAP program.  It was the night of the first class and three of us met at the home of the person who lived closest to the campus and then we schlepped to the Ohio Union.  To get to OSU, we had to cross High Street and we decided to do that at 11th Avenue.  And did I mention that it was COLD AS FUCK that night?  Well, it was colder than that.  But, like all good OSU students and Columbusite's we stopped at the corner and waited for the light to change because back then Columbus was notoriouss for jaywalking tickets and the police were everywhere on campus back then.

So we get the light, we start to cross and some woman screams "Oh, my GOD, look out!"

The next thing I know I land on High Street and when I come to, I start hearing more screams, and I'm thinking that the car is going to run over me.  But it never does.  And this person comes running up to me and tells me to lie still and that she'll "save your boots," and I'm thinking what and then I notice that my feet are really cold.

The construction boots I was wearing were knocked off my feet by the impact.  And when she brought them to me, they were still TIED.

The good news is that while all three of us were hit, no one was killed or maimed, and the damage was all soft tissue.  The driver of the car blew a 2.0 and was so soused that he was yelling at our friend Tom who caved the windshield on the Ford Escort that the drunk was driving.  Anyway, none of us was admitted to the hospital, we all went home when were discharged at 3AM.

And the next morning we wake up and were thinking "we were run over," and people will give us love.  But that thought lasted for about ten minutes because that was when the Space Shutter Challenger blew up.  An event like that has a way of grounding you into what is important, and what is not.

We were lucky - they were not.  And guess what, we could have had all the sympathy in the world, but God decided that was not to be.

Anyway, the club chair was a present from my mother because I couldn't get comfortable on my old crappy hand me down and junk store furniture, and she thought that a new chair would be a good thing to have.

Did I mention that the club chair she gave me was a Lane product and was brand spanking new?  Did I mention it was MAUVE?  Mauve? Yes, Mauve. Well it was 1986 and Mauve was in.  Problem was that in 1987, Mauve was most certainly OUT.  But the club chair was a great chair, and I made it my own.  When when you sit in a chair all the time, you lose sight of the color of said chair.

Anyway, at twenty five it was looking shabby and frankly, it didn't go with anything in our house and the springs were sprung, and it was time to go.  But we couldn't find a replacement chair that was that comfy for under $2,000. (I'm tell you, it was a great chair.)  Hence the trip to Fabric Farms, and timing the chair to go and get done when they came to get the rest of the furniture that was going to storage.  I had cleared this with Linda - my 60 year old hillbilly upholsterer - and she took the Lucky Strike out of her mouth just long enough to cough and say "Honey, for you, I will make this happen."

Everyone was on board, but evidently Linda's husband James never got the memo.  He pulled up his truck today at 5:30 and said "Linda said that I was to come her and git yer chair."

After a phone call and a "Oh my God - this isn't the last weekend of the month? Well shit in my pants, I'm sorry Honey," and I love Linda, so I let James have the chair.

Now there is this big empty spot in my living room.   The dog is vexed because he has no place to nap, and now I have to sit on the couch.

Of course there is comfort in knowing that the chair will be fabulous when its done, but still I have been parking my ass in that chair for 25 years and its gone - a lot like my boots the night of the accident.  Boots, or the chair, today I didn't see it coming.

So if you stop by in the next week, I'll be the barefooted guy sitting on the couch trying to get comfortable.  Linda told me once when she couldn't save a crappy chair that I had bought with stars in my eyes so big I couldn't see the cracked and rotted frame "Honey, if you are looking for sympathy over something like this its in the dictionary between shit and syphilis."

I will endure, but I won't be comfortable while I'm doing it.