The Importance of Being Comfy

Once upon a time, there was a chair that had been in a hotel room for years.

Its fabric dulled over the years, and its matching ottoman began to look a bit ratty. The hotel dumped it, and all its brothers and sisters; a furniture dealer carried them all away and stacked them in a dusty warehouse that sold, on the cheap, used furniture.

One day a couple came in looking for cheap chairs to put in their TV room, and took home the dull chair and its twin, with their matching ratty ottomans. It was a good thing, and for the next nine years, the couple reveled in the comfiness of the old chair, guests got so comfy they fell asleep in the arms of the old chair, and the dog of the house loved the chair so much that he stopped sleeping beside his muvver and slept in the chair instead. Three novels, a bushel basket of short stories, and more than a few movie reviews were written from that chair. The chair was pleased that not only the dog loved to sleep in it, but the mistress also slept in its arms when she was sick, or needed to be near the fireplace to keep it going in the cold winter nights.

Alas! The upholstery could not last forever, and began to disintegrate. Time had its way with the chair and its twin; they were tired and worn out and ready to return to the earth.

When they were gone, the mistress of the house was inconsolable, because all that was left to sit in and write was a bony piece of lawn furniture brought in from the porch. (There was a set of living room furniture, but they were neither particularly comfortable nor well-situated for writing. Thus they were invisible to the mistress of the house.)

The woman knew that she had to find the proper successor to the position of Comfy Chair. She went into furniture stores and sat in every chair there was to offer. Some were too deep, so that she had no back support at all; some were so squooshy she gagged; others were just too high for her stubby legs and her feet dangled, a situation sure to cut off circulation to her legs. Some had backs too low to allow one to fall asleep in; some were just so butt-ugly that the woman knew that she would pour gasoline on them and burn them down within a fortnight.

Then, just the other day, weary with watching the rather lousy movie "Prince Caspian", the mistress of the house skidded to a stop in front of Pier 1 Imports, a store fabled for chairs designed for short people.

She went in and once again, sat in every chair in the store. And then it happened: her husband, knowing how short his wife was, and how comfort-oriented her rear end was, directed her to sit in a chair. The mistress of the house sat, and she and the chair fell immediately in love.

This is that chair, and its friend, the matching ottoman.

Difficult to tell in this humble photograph, the chair is smiling smugly that the woman has already fallen asleep in it several times while writing, and the dog cannot wait for the woman to go to bed so that he can climb up and snug in.

And amazingly, it's not only The Comfy Chair, it's beautiful, too.