Kirk Novak: Sitting in a chair that has a broken leg to my inescapable horror

SITTING IN A CHAIR THAT HAS A BROKEN LEG TO MY INESCAPABLE HORROR

Chair maddeningly squeaks as sitter tries to find balance.

Horror doesn’t even begin to describe what this chair has put me through.

I didn’t have a chair to sit in and I needed one real bad. Unfortunately, it sent me on a journey into the deepest circles of hell, squirting out of the bowels of madness. You see, as a present to myself I took a chair from an alley in my neighborhood. The price was right and the condition was like-new. Most chairs I had found shopping online cost between $50 and $100, which is way too rich for my blood, and Staples doesn’t work for the promise of pay like I do. I’m a freelance technical writer. The barista at the coffee shop around the corner from my grandma’s is totally in love with me, so she told me to leave Starbeans and never come back. Then, right as I was walking home I saw this chair. My eyes met its leather back. It was destiny. I fell in love at first sight.

I gently wheeled it home and brought it downstairs into my grandmother’s basement where I’ve cobbled an “office” together next to my bed. As soon as I sat down to torrent the latest season of Downton Abbey and peruse some hentai, the chair immediately tilted back and to the left, back and to the left. I nearly toppled over backwards, certain to snap my neck. My heart was racing. Beads of sweat broke across my brow. I slowly, steadily, balanced the chair and tried to stand up. The chair rocked forward and I toppled over, smacking my forehead on the steel desk I took from an abandoned school.

I put a butterfly bandage on the cut instead of going to the ER for stitches. I was bleeding, but determined. I walked up from behind the chair and grabbed it by the back before it could have a chance to react. I spun it around to face me and sat down. It lurched to the right, it lurched to the left, but it could not throw me from the saddle. I felt the leather beneath my sturdy frame rip, tufts of decaying foam spewed forth and floated on the dense still air in my grandmother’s basement.

I heard the tell-tale sound that my torrent of Downton Abbey had completed. Anxious to bathe in the wit of the Dowager Countess of Grantham, I gripped the edge of my desk and pulled myself forward, dragging the locked wheels across the tile laminate flooring. I pressed CTRL + F4 on my keyboard to close the tentacle porn before I dug in deep to some aristocracy porn. Suddenly, a terrible creak gave way to deafening moan as the base of the chair separated from the seat like the Titanic splitting in two. It cast me overboard onto the floor, the tiles peeling like monstrous waves during a storm on the open sea. I yelped helplessly as the hulk of the chair fell on top of me, trapping me under its weight. I’m still lying here, immobilized, afraid, in pain, dying.

My chair is broken, please help. SOS. I should be sitting at my computer comfortably.