The Purple Chair
When my daughter was young, she got a purple reclining chair from her Grammy. It's pretty plush for a kids chair, tilting back with ease while lifting little legs into a comfortable position. A kid's kind of luxury. It’s such a cool chair that I have seen a lot of adults try to sit in it. When they see it in the living room, it puzzles them. Looks too fancy for a kid, but too small for an adult. So they approach the enigma, taking note of how small it is compared to the couches. But they can’t shake that enticing feeling, and so after a few seconds of study, they sit.
Immediately, they are stuck. It’s too narrow for adult hips. Their butt is too big. This wasn’t made for you. But since the construction is solid, and it functions just like a normal chair, they stay put. Stuck in the mud. Eventually they do get up, knowing they have been beaten. Some try to stick it out for a while, but no one stays for an entire entertainment program.
When she was the appropriate size, my daughter loved it. Her own chair. A possession, a marked location, a throne appropriate for a twenty-first century princess. One time it lived behind a cash register on a children's convenience store counter. The store sold canned goods, eggs, and milk bottles. They also had fresh fruit in the variety of those colorful wood pieces that stick together with velcro so you can easily cut them apart with the provided wood knife. The knife was as dull as a graham cracker, but it got the job done.
Next, the chair sat behind a desk when my daughter started her own technology business. Equipped with a broken keyboard and a cardboard monitor, she would clank away at those keys like they were small whack-a-moles. She would throw her head back in frustration at the number of emails coming in. She typed like a madwoman, late for a meeting and annoyed that her employees couldn’t keep up. I had a few of my own staff over one day, and when they observed her, crazy at the keyboard, they said she types just like I do. I’m still not sure what to make of that.
Finally, as all kids things go, it slowly started to get sat in less and less. She grew out of the grocery business, stepped away from the hectic office job, and got into barbies. Dolls have accessories, and those accessories need to be proportionately sized. The chair didn’t fit with doll houses and Ken’s fancy car. It stayed in the living room, like a relic from the past on display in a museum.
Then we got cats. The cats immediately took to the chair. In fact, they liked it too much at first, and scratched the ever-living out of it. Have you ever noticed how cats like to claw at leather more than anything else? Cats have been in our lives forever, and even with all the scratching posts, couch corners, and carpet laced kitty trees, I have never seen furniture get destroyed more thoroughly and quickly than the two leather objects in our living room. The chair got claw marks in it so fast that it became an ugly, unfixable eyesore.
But still, it’s such a nice chair. It still has sentimental value. So I threw a Seahawks blanket over it, and by my side of the couch it now rests. The cats still love it, and somehow the blanket keeps them from scratching it. One cat in particular, named Snowball, likes to sit there in the evening. She curls up, puts on a smile, and waits for my hand. I can’t resist petting her when she sits in that chair, because it’s right by my side. My hand rests down to pet her fur as easily as it sits on the arm of the couch.
Double bonus is, this cat likes to watch basketball. That is my favorite sport to watch. And with an NBA league pass and a wife that likes sports even more than I do, seven foot athletes often run across the screen in our living room after dinner. And so I sit down to watch, the cat goes to her chair, and I pet her. It’s a ritual now.
A chair with so many memories. A chair for small occupants. A chair not made for adults. But for kids and cats, it’s a sacred space in our living room.
