![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pjthompsonYes, I've come into an unexpected windfall.
But before I tell you about that, I have a sad story to relate. When I was in college I inherited this used, but still solid (steel frame), once-expensive, once-good quality recliner chair. I had no furniture so I wasn't going to say no and it was very comfy. I had it reupholstered in a subtle blue-white-beige stripe and it was pretty passable. The chair saw me through thick and thin and many moves. Eventually, it got old. A couple of years back, it got stuck in the permanent erection position. The only way I could get the footrest to go back down was to pound on the footrest until the steel joints holding it up decided to bend. This was such a pain that mostly I left it erect which meant that to get out of the chair, I had to hoist myself forward by the arms, put my feet down on the floor between the chair and the footrest, and step over the footrest to go about my business. (Yes, my life often resembles a slapstick comedy. Why do you ask?)
Eventually, not even pounding it would make the permanent erection go down again. (You may take that in whatever metaphorical sense you wish.) Since I am the ultimate workaround girl (in other words, a procrastinator of the highest caliber), I lived with it. I had no money to replace it, anyway.
A couple of months ago just on a regular night when I wasn't even pounding the erection or anything, it went ka-blunk! and the footrest collapsed, the chair listed to one side, groaned, then settled.
"Maybe I need to do something about this," I said.
I did. I pulled a wicker chest up to where the footrest had been, put a pillow on top of it, and sat back down. Really, the list to the right was not so bad—and I am right-handed, after all. I did consider that I needed to replace it, since it was my reading and screen-viewing chair and the only furniture in the living room besides the two-seater divan conversationally across the way from the chair. But since my car had just gone belly-up and I had unanticipated car payments, I thought I'd just have to live with my listing, footrestless recliner.
So last month my mother said she'd been contacted by a state agency to say they were holding money for me from a defunct insurance policy. Seems the insurance company couldn't locate me anymore. So I called them up. $300! Wow! Not only that, but they said if I contacted the insurance company, they might have a little more cash for me. They did. Nearly $900! I got the check last night. I still haven't gotten the $300 from the state because I've been procrastinating over the paperwork. (Yeah, I know. I have no survival instincts.) But $889! I can buy a new chair.
And maybe I can get a new mattress, too. See, it once was solid and a good quality mattress, but that was a long time ago. Sometimes when I turn over at night, I can hear the springs go bwwwoing!
I'll have to pay capital gains taxes on this booty next year, but in the short term I'm heading to the hotel surplus store to look for a nice comfy chair with a footrest. Not today, though. Not this weekend. Maybe next weekend, but then...well, who can say?
And about the music notation above: all afternoon I've been listening to the neighbor across the alley using his buzz saw and every time he starts it up the foo-foo dog next door starts yapping. So the song goes like this:
wwwwwRRRReeeee yapyapyapyap!
wwwwwRRRReeeee yapyapyapyap!
wwwwwRRRReeeee yapyapyapyap!
wwwwwRRRReeeee yapyapyapyap!
But before I tell you about that, I have a sad story to relate. When I was in college I inherited this used, but still solid (steel frame), once-expensive, once-good quality recliner chair. I had no furniture so I wasn't going to say no and it was very comfy. I had it reupholstered in a subtle blue-white-beige stripe and it was pretty passable. The chair saw me through thick and thin and many moves. Eventually, it got old. A couple of years back, it got stuck in the permanent erection position. The only way I could get the footrest to go back down was to pound on the footrest until the steel joints holding it up decided to bend. This was such a pain that mostly I left it erect which meant that to get out of the chair, I had to hoist myself forward by the arms, put my feet down on the floor between the chair and the footrest, and step over the footrest to go about my business. (Yes, my life often resembles a slapstick comedy. Why do you ask?)
Eventually, not even pounding it would make the permanent erection go down again. (You may take that in whatever metaphorical sense you wish.) Since I am the ultimate workaround girl (in other words, a procrastinator of the highest caliber), I lived with it. I had no money to replace it, anyway.
A couple of months ago just on a regular night when I wasn't even pounding the erection or anything, it went ka-blunk! and the footrest collapsed, the chair listed to one side, groaned, then settled.
"Maybe I need to do something about this," I said.
I did. I pulled a wicker chest up to where the footrest had been, put a pillow on top of it, and sat back down. Really, the list to the right was not so bad—and I am right-handed, after all. I did consider that I needed to replace it, since it was my reading and screen-viewing chair and the only furniture in the living room besides the two-seater divan conversationally across the way from the chair. But since my car had just gone belly-up and I had unanticipated car payments, I thought I'd just have to live with my listing, footrestless recliner.
So last month my mother said she'd been contacted by a state agency to say they were holding money for me from a defunct insurance policy. Seems the insurance company couldn't locate me anymore. So I called them up. $300! Wow! Not only that, but they said if I contacted the insurance company, they might have a little more cash for me. They did. Nearly $900! I got the check last night. I still haven't gotten the $300 from the state because I've been procrastinating over the paperwork. (Yeah, I know. I have no survival instincts.) But $889! I can buy a new chair.
And maybe I can get a new mattress, too. See, it once was solid and a good quality mattress, but that was a long time ago. Sometimes when I turn over at night, I can hear the springs go bwwwoing!
I'll have to pay capital gains taxes on this booty next year, but in the short term I'm heading to the hotel surplus store to look for a nice comfy chair with a footrest. Not today, though. Not this weekend. Maybe next weekend, but then...well, who can say?
And about the music notation above: all afternoon I've been listening to the neighbor across the alley using his buzz saw and every time he starts it up the foo-foo dog next door starts yapping. So the song goes like this:
wwwwwRRRReeeee yapyapyapyap!
wwwwwRRRReeeee yapyapyapyap!
wwwwwRRRReeeee yapyapyapyap!
wwwwwRRRReeeee yapyapyapyap!
no subject
Date: 2005-05-22 04:10 am (UTC)Been there. Sat down on the camp chair. Heard the ripping sound as my backside descended through the seat. Stayed there for what felt like half an hour while everybody else had their laugh out. Finally they got round to rescuing me. It didn't help that it was at an archaeological dig...
The trouble is, it really was funny. Even I could see that, eventually.
(I think that was the second dig, not the one where one of the group pretended she was going to a health farm instead, because she couldn't face the chi-acking, and it backfired on her)
no subject
Date: 2005-05-22 11:12 am (UTC)