I Wish I Had another Plastic Chair

I Wish I Had another Plastic Chair

I wish I had another plastic chair. Eight people live in my house, and our house has a total of four chairs and I think four stools. If you do the math that means that we have enough seating for everyone in our house. But here is the problem: I don’t like sitting on the stools; they are just not comfortable. And…those chairs and stools are spread out all over the house. One of the chairs is mine—I am sitting in it right now, it is my desk chair in my room. Another chair is in Andrea’s room; she sits in it when she works at her computer. That leaves two chairs to be divided between the kitchen/dining room and the patio (and of course the four stools, but some of them always seem to be missing, and I don’t really like sitting on them). Now, I have to be perfectly honest, we used to have five chairs and I am partly responsible for the loss of our fifth chair. My roommate Cio probably should not have tried to sit in my lap during Anna’s going away party while holding a bottle of rum in her hand, but she did, and now we only have four chairs.

So many times I have thought about going out and buying another chair. They cost about $5, but I think that is just too much. But it is annoying to constantly haul a chair from the kitchen to the patio, or the patio to the kitchen every time I want to sit in a different location. In the United States, I don’t haul my desk chair to the kitchen to eat dinner, then haul it to the patio in the evening, and then back to my bedroom to do work. That is ridiculous. And then it occurred to me. In my old apartment in Los Angeles, four of us lived together. We had six chairs in our dining room, four on our patio, seating for seven in our living room, five chairs between all the bedroom desks, two folding chairs in the garage, and a plethora of lawn chairs. Not counting the innumerable lawn chairs, that makes 23 seats for four people. And what was my desk chair, and my spare desk chair, and the folding chairs in the garage, the chairs on the porch, the couch and loveseat doing when I was sitting in a chair in the dining room? They were sitting vacant. “Sitting vacant” get it? The chair was sitting. Aren’t people supposed to sit in chairs? But we in the United States have so much that frequently our stuff has to serve a purpose for itself.

Many times in Guatemala, I have wondered: Why is there no mirror in this bathroom, why don’t we have a counter in our kitchen, why don’t houses have water heaters, why doesn’t someone put a shelf here? Maybe it is because Guatemala is not a country of excess like the United States is. Maybe I am just trying to impose my values of having 23 seats for four people in this county where it is common to have ten seats for 20 people. This is definitely proven by the mini-busses here which have seats for ten, but if only 20 people are in the bus, the ayudante is trying to squeeze more people into the vehicle. This is in sharp contrast to the giant busses I see go past in Los Angeles with almost no one on them. Maybe the Los Angeles Metro system should try hiring someone hang out of the door of the bus yelling at people to get on—this method works quite well here in Guatemala. But I forgot, knowledge is only transmitted one way, and that one way is from first world nation to third world nation. I am sure molded plastic chairs were not invented in Guatemala, but they are everywhere now. What is wrong with chairs made out of wood? But I know the answer; they are not as cheap and convenient as plastic. And I am sure that the parents in the US who haul their children around in $200 backpack devices with at least 17 clips, 13 pockets, 8 zippers, and a seat belt to lock their child in place would not want to try tying their child to their back with a hand woven blanket.

Well, you be the judge. Maybe both cultures are strange. Really what is better, carrying your chair from room to room, or having six times the number chairs than people in your house? What is stranger: having twenty people on a bus made for ten or ten people on a bus made for sixty? Three people on a motorcycle or one person in an eight passenger SUV (or station wagon)?

Well I hope you are sitting on a comfortable sofa with your feet up on the coffee table reading this. Or maybe in your leather desk chair with adjustable arm rests, hydraulic height adjustment, wheels, swivel, and a leaver to let you recline. “Rest” assured that I am sitting at my small wooden desk, in my molded black plastic chair writing this blog.

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