Remember  that scene in Shallow Hal where Rosemary ends up on the floor of the ice cream shop because her chair breaks? You don’t? You didn’t see it? That’s ok. Rosemary is extremely obese, but Hal can’t see it because he’s under a spell that allows him to see people through the lens of their inner beauty. In other words, he sees Gwyneth Paltrow while the rest of the world sees her in a fat suit. While they are on a date, her chair gives way and she ends up on the floor. It’s a common fat person nightmare.

It’s a nightmare that until yesterday I was in danger of living. You see, we had these extremely cheap-o chairs around our kitchen table. They were the Swedish assemble it yourself and save type, and they served us well for about a year. After that, they started to wobble. All of them, not just mine. Tightening screws didn’t seem to help, so we got used to sitting in chairs that were a little wonky. Then one morning about two weeks ago, it happened. Mine shifted. It was like an amusement park ride, only it wasn’t amusing. All of a sudden I started listing to one side. My cat like reflexes steadied me, but I was shaken. A screw had broken, and the whole thing now resembled something Salvador Dali might have designed.

Now the good news is that there are three of us who use chairs in our household and four chairs. A shift was made, and we carried on. However, I couldn’t get the image of Rosemary on the floor out of my mind. It was only a matter of time with these wonky chairs. I was just too much for them.

Yesterday I decided that enough was enough. My errands took me to a warehouse store, where they had exactly what I wanted. They were sturdy, inexpensive, and similar in style to the old chairs. We brought them home, set them up, and I’ve been sitting pretty ever since.  One less fat person thing to worry about. Now I can comfortably sit at the kitchen table and catch up on my work that I’ve put aside in favor of blogging. What a relief.