Anatomy Of A Chair

Picture this: It’s a dark and stormy night- sorry, I’ve always wanted to say that.

No, it’s a gloomy, dreary, gray day. A cold day with light rain. A boring day. A day where me and student spotlight writer, Conchita Rivera, needed a chair for our 3D Design final. But that’s a boring story. 

So, back to the dramatics. 

Picture this: a dark and stormy night, we just bought a (quite large) chair from Goodwill. We lugged it out of the store and into the parking lot where my car sits, unaware of the absolute chaos about to pour down in turrets with the rain. I fumble with my keys, the water making me rush to get my doors unlocked as quickly as possible. A feat we will soon learn was in vain- we were about to get soaked no matter how quickly my doors unlocked.

We hoist our prized chair up and make our first attempts at putting it in my car. And, oh no, what’s this? The chair, our chair we just spent a whole six dollars on, our chair, whose upholstery was currently soaking up water faster than the realization that hits us. 

Our chair was too big. 

As we stand in this parking lot, surrounded by people and cars, our disdain and horror at the situation only grows, swelling with the clouds and fabric. 

Yet, we persist. Our second attempt is not much better than our first. Instead of trying to cram the chair into my front seat, we try the back seats. No luck. This chair, this six dollar, bug infested, sturdy chair will not fit in my car in one piece. We contemplate, we strategize, we get soaked through to the bone. 

And finally, we look at each other and come to a conclusion. We need to take this chair apart somehow. 

Conchita grabs the back of the chair, I take its legs, and together we slam it into the ground. We jump, we hit, we pull, we kick, we stumble. And we, eventually, break off an arm. A single arm is a triumph and trophy of our hard work. We stand the chair back up, grip its sopping wet sides (it landed in a puddle because of course it did.) And we line it up with my, still open and now thoroughly wet, back seats. 

Our third attempt goes worse than our first two. It would appear that taking a single limb off wouldn’t suffice.

Not only will the chair still not fit, but a man pulls up behind us. He watches, he waits, he smokes with his window down. And eventually, he speaks. Not only does he tell us what we already know- the chair simply will not fit. But he tells us we need to turn the chair more, which- wow, good advice, thank you. We nod and affirm we’ve turned it every possible way, I wave the chair arm at him as proof of our efforts. 

He says nothing. He watches, our backs to him, before rolling up his window and vacating the middle of the road he chose as his spot for entertainment.  

We grow tired of the rain, the cold, the crowds. Conchita pins our chair down, wrapping her hands tight around its remaining arm and back cushion. I grip my, still open, car door and pull myself up. I get into position above the chair and leap onto its legs with the intent of breaking them clean off. 

Bad idea, good execution. I do not succeed in cleanly breaking off our chair’s limbs, I do however, manage to crack its spine. The back completely separates from the seat cushion. A nice satisfying crack hits our ears and we have proof that this thing isn’t indestructible. 

Rejuvenated, I jumped on it again, and again, and again, this time succeeding in breaking off a leg. Tired, and possibly a little irate at this chair, for no reason other than its inability to fit in my car. I jump one last time on its pitiful, broken-limbed, figure. 

The chair splinters enough for us to rip all the other arms and legs off with our bare hands. I really doubt the Goodwill cashier who checked us out was prepared to see two college students ripping apart a wooden chair with nothing but our hands.

But, at last, fifteen minutes later, my very wet car now has a very wet, very dirty, chair in the back seat. 

We celebrate, we cheer, we almost get in a wreck as I forget blind spots are a thing. And we make it back to Marywood with our corpse. And of course, a tour is going on. No matter, it’s still raining and we still have to get this chair inside. 

We hurry out of my car, dragging the chair and its several splintered pieces of wood behind us in front of several aspiring future Marywood students. 

I fear the fabric is more water and mud than cotton at this point. We get to the elevator, dragging a graphic trail of water and dirt behind us, and finally, finally we shove our beloved chair under our work stations. 

We called it a day after that. Dragging our feet and weary bodies back to our dorms and shelter from the elements. Deciding to leave the “deboning” of our chair for Monday’s class. It’s not like there are hundreds of staples holding together the upholstery of our chair or anything. It’s not like there are dead bugs and nails embedded so far into the wood that there would be no hope of getting them out in one piece. It’s not like it would take us four, three-hour class periods to get the chair dismantled, right? 

Right. It took us five, three-hour class periods and there were easily thousands of staples holding the upholstery to the chair and not only were there nails so far into the wood we had to cut around most of them. But! There were metal coils holding the cushion of the seat together. Long metal coils that required us to jam a screwdriver between hinges and wood and pry them out over the course of two days. 

I had a strong hatred for this chair. Destroying it wasn’t even a rewarding effort, I wanted to throw it off the roof. I wanted to find whoever put thousands of staples into that chair and take away their staple gun.

However, our struggle wasn’t in vain.

During the process of tearing this poor chair apart with our hands, pure anger, and a flathead screwdriver, we finally had an idea of what to do with all the broken pieces. We had decided to make a rib cage. It felt fitting to personify our chair in this way.

While the entire process from start to finish was mostly a nightmare, gluing the final rib down and putting the last layer of paint on our splintered wood felt rewarding.

And at last, after many hours and days and staples, our final was complete.