The Devil's Throne

In a recent post Sweeping for Bugs, I mentioned the Devil's new chair. This reminded me of the story connected with the new chair:

About eighteen months ago, the Devil injured his back. It's a mystery how said injury occurred, as the Devil doesn't manage to accomplish much at work and, presumably, even less at home. Perhaps there is more effort involved in ordering around relatives. Suffice it to say, however, that the Devil sustained a back injury.

During the morning of his first day back at work, the Devil became convinced that his office chair was exacerbating the injury. He tried adjusting it upward, and backward, tried moving the arm heights, tried tilting the seat in a variety of ways, but could not alleviate the pain. Finally, he concluded that there would have to be a new office chair.

Normally, when someone in our office gets a new chair, it's someone else's grungy old cast-off chair. Occasionally, when a crappy chair breaks, one can talk to the office manager and be put on a list for the next time chairs are ordered in bulk. If you're around when the chairs are delivered, you get to pick the color you want: black or grey.

In the Devil's hands, a chair purchase is a serious thing. First of all, money is no object. Even though the company has laid people off in the recent past, nothing as trivial as cost should stand between the Devil and the most comfortable therapeutic office chair available. The Devil spent a good week doing on-line research and reading Today's Chair magazine. Finally, he selected about seven chairs he thought might work. But before he committed his hard-earned chair budget to any one chair, he needed to try them out. Here's how that went:

Devil: Are you busy, minion?
Minion: Why no, Devil, just trying to get these figures you wanted by the end of the day together. Why don't you let me move the ledger books so you can put your feet up.
Devil: I need you to order me a chair. Here's the name of the store (handing me a slip of paper). Tell them I want to try it out. Two weeks should be enough.
Minion: Oookay. Do they do free trials?
Devil: They will for me. Tell them who I am.
Minion: Right. Okay. Umm, what kind of chair is it, anyway?
Devil: It's the Arrow Chair. It was designed by Nolan Miller.
-- Long Silence --
Minion: Nolan Miller?
Devil: Yep, Nolan Miller. Tell them I want it for two weeks, okay?

So, I'm thinking, does he know that Nolan Miller was the fashion designer whose work was featured on "Dynasty"? Does this Arrow chair have shoulder pads and a peplum on the back? Is it mud resistant, for the inevitable "rolling-in-the-fishpond" cat fight? Or could the Devil possibly mean the Aeron Chair, designed by Herman Miller.

I ordered the chair, and they did agree to a free trial, even without my having to name drop the no-name I work for. And no one in the office corrected the Devil about the name, because hearing him call it the Arrow chair, and attribute it to Nolan Miller was just too damn funny. He talked about it a lot, too. Seems the Arrow chair wasn't quite the Devil's cup of tea.

We ordered six or seven other chairs for the Devil's sitting pleasure. None measured up to his exacting standards. So, one by one, we sent them back. This went on (the ordering, the free trials, the returns) for about six months. Then one day, the Voice of Reason forwarded an e-mail to me. The Devil had asked her to order him another chair to try out. Here is the text of his e-mail to her:

When you get in, I would like you to order a different chair instead of the one I currently have which is not comfortable and concomitantly is too uncomfortable for me because of my back injury and the length of my legs and the fact that I have to sit in it and use it for other purposes. Call the Nolan Miller people and see if I can try out that Arrow chair.

We laughed and laughed. And the whole thing started all over again. The Devil is a hard task master, and he needs a soft throne. Perhaps the shoulder pads will help.