I had the opportunity to WAIT! for 45 minutes the other day at Staples. Now that I have kids, and an iphone, waiting is actually something I relish. With an unexpected chance to relax I meandered into the chair section of the office supply store. I had planned on some alone time with my internet scrabble, but then I gasped. I am big into blind taste tests, so when I saw 30 chairs at my disposal, I began to salivate instantly. Not that I had any intention of eating the chairs. It was more like a mental salivation….I was on a mission to seek out THE best chair. I could already see myself accepting the award for most discriminating sitter, passing on my new found information to rallies of fans who teeter on my words waiting eagerly for my next great suggestion. By the time I had sat in the fourth chair, I had worked out a pretty proficient testing scenario. Wheel speed, Agility, circumnavigation, reclining ratio, arm rest positioning, something I call ” around the world” and of course smell.

Interestingly, I once tried to buy an ink cartridge at staples and it took 3 days for one person to offer no help at all. But I do one smell test on a couple of chairs and I’m suddenly inundated with a cacophony of “ma’am can I Help yous”

After a half dozen good sits in a couple of task chairs, a few spins in some leather managers chairs and the curious discovery that the same chair in different colors yields different results, I drew a conclusion….ALL of the office chairs at Staples suck goat balls.

I don’t say that lightly. Here we have 30 chairs in various styles and price ranges and all of them, while proficient in providing a place to “sit” in sitting position, lack the very essence of what make our country great..Innovation. My expectation was simply that the least expensive chairs would be the least comfortable, that comfort and price level would increase parrellely and that eventually , at the top echelon of chair price I would need to duke it out amongst the top contenders with a series of rigorous and time consuming exercises. But the truth of my experience was that they were ALL bland relatively comfortless chairs. There was no Ahhhhh moment. No stand out star. And I have to ask why?

And then I have to ask…what do I really want in a chair. And then I have to listen to myself answer.

I want a seat belt. Not cause I’m afraid of falling out (I’m not afraid of it, its just part of sitting in a chair that happens sometimes…especially if you are a pencil dropper and an overzealous reacher) I want a seat belt because its like a hug. I would work so much better if I was in a constant state of hug. AND I want a pencil holder. not like a cup, but like an extra hand. Cause I only have 2 hands, but I have like 10 pencils. You do the math and wonder why chairs don’t have extra arms. “Like hello you have four legs, chair..even yourself out why don’t you” And I want tempurpedic memory foam, umm everywhere. This is not just a desire for chairs, but for all things everywhere. And maybe an animatronic dog footrest. I have an actual dog footrest and find her to be quite warm and good, but not everyone can be so lucky, so throw them an animatronic bone and tack on a puppy.

I could see that it would be easy to get carried away designing my dream chair, and I have to wonder if it is extreme discipline these chair makers are utilizing to not go overboard in their design. I literally had to reel myself in from designing chairs with secret passageways into the floor, and swinging chairs made entirely of taxidermied orangutans ( that’s a terrible idea for a chair by the way) So I say Let yourself GO chair makers. Let yourself go. A little extra comfort never hurt anyone. I would settle for just a bit of cushion and a chair that smells good……even after I sit in it.