Comfy Chair

Comfy Chair ©

By Michael Casey

I got a new chair the other day, from Groupon, I had tried them for toilet paper as you know, so I thought I’d then try them for the same part of my anatomy, so I got a chair from Groupon. I was sitting in it tonight watching Pete’s Dragon and letting a tear loose. Yes I can cry easily, and yes my film tastes are very catholic, yesterday it was American Ultra which was very violent with blood and gore but a good film to watch. As you know earlier in the day I wrote about All Souls Day, today, so I suppose the reservoir of love about family and hope swelled and dripped from my eyes when I watched Pete’s Dragon. Or maybe I’m just a big baby.

My new chair from Groupon is chunky and big enough for my fat backside, and as I watched Pete’s Dragon I had a memory, when I went to the cinema in Killorglin in 1977 or 1978 around Christmas time and you had to pay extra for the jumbo seats which were more comfy.  The new chair reminded me of that, memories of County Kerry swelling up in me because my fat backside was reminded of a sweet memory from 40 years ago. I’m struggling to remember the film I saw it may have been a Star Wars one. It goes to show comfort is everything.

The Gaumont Cinema Birmingham had really comfy seats too and I remember seeing a Star Wars film there, as well as an Alien film on my birthday, I seem to remember going with my brother. The screen was a wrap-around one which was the biggest in Europe.  Remember this was before multiplexes were even thought of. If you the fast forward decades later it was demolished and an X or W shaped building was built by the Weslian insurance who owned the land. Originally they had a little building right next to the cinema. In that building they had half and the other half was occupied by Pinsent Masons Law firm. Pinsents is obviously the best Law  firm, and I’m not saying that because they employed me for 3 years.

So as I sit on my new chair all these memories coming back and I’m sharing them with you.  A chair is a functional thing but it does bring happiness and rest. My dad would sit in his armchair once he came home from Hell, by which I mean 10 hours and more at a steel works, The District Iron and Steel in Brasshouse  Lane in Smethwick, it was sometimes known as Brockhouse. My dad really was a blacksmith  in Kerry and then sweated for 40 years in a steelworks in England. I’m not  just lying to you,  as a  good writer does for a living, my dad really was a blacksmith, and yes I am a Wordsmith.

My mother had a favourite chair it was an old barn chair, so when the back broke we sawed off the back and she continued to use it. It was good to sit at while she peeled the potatoes into the sink. Or to sit in the yard with when we got a sunny day. Dad invested in a cheap tubular steel folding lounger. I can remember Coffee our red setter like dog licking his toes as the sun shone. As for the wooden chair mum used it to stand on and wash the outside windows. When I moved house over 30 years ago I stole that chair, and my mum nagged me for years to bring it back. Its upstairs right now in the box room, in fact it could be 60 years old.

So you can see just how important a humble chair can be. I always wanted a rocking chair and when I set up home I got my heart’s desire. In fact it was a very nice armchair on rockers. I got a suite from Lewis’s in Birmingham, which is now a Court Building, for 1000 pounds, which was a lot of money over 30 years ago. A 3, 2,1 plus a rocker suite in the sale, I can remember dashing to the bank to get the money, or rather the deposit, 10 payments of 100 over 10 months. Then I broke a tooth as we ate our dinner, it was over the August Bank Holiday, and my aunty Hanna used to work in Lewis’s too.

Now a rocker is fun and you enjoy the rhythm, and rhythm is a good thing in music and sex. My daughter may or may not have been conceived years later in that rocking chair. Try it for yourself, rocking chairs are great, though I don’t know if Groupon has any at the moment. Once the children are born you watch as your child is held at the nipple and is fed by your wife. Now you are a family. Though a boyfriend at the nipple can also lead to a baby at the nipple, it depends how much rocking you do in your rocking chair, no matter where you buy it.

Children grow and they steal your rocking chair, so you have to share it, and finally you are ejected from your own chair. Meanwhile your wife just laughs at you, a rocking chair is now a form of contraception, because you won’t catch her in the rocker because the children are using it as a toy, and no longer will the rocker be your joy.

Old age comes along, or infirmity as it seems to be, so you just gently rock in your chair, with just your carer there. You are old and fat with no hair, so the carer puts you to bed. Then her boyfriend sneaks in and they rediscover  the uses of an old and battered  rocking armchair. And in 9 months’ time the boyfriend won’t have her nipples but their new born will, she mixed up your heart pills with her contraceptive pills. So at least you weren’t a pregnant man at 80, but she had the heart to take all the rocking in the rocking chair.

So goodnight to you all reading this, enjoy your Bliss, in a bed, in a car, in field or in a rocking chair, just be happy before the nappy.

p.s. today is the feast of saint martin de porres 3rd Nov

a neighbour longed for a daughter after having 3 sons, my mum said pray to saint Martin, the neighbour had a daughter, she is called Martina