November 15, 2007 Issue

About a year ago I moved from a town home to a house. In my new space, I had a lot more space including an entire room, which I suppose was once a family recreation area. I use half of it for my home office and the other half as my television room. Using my existing furniture at the time, I had an easy chair for this room, but the chair in question is aging and the fabric becoming threadbare. It is slated for new upholstery any day now — somehow I can’t seem to call up someone and get an estimate. The chair is too well made to ditch, as Americans now mostly do with older furniture and electronics, but that’s another story.

The new digs called for some new furniture. There is little I dislike more than shopping, but I always know what I’m going after when shopping, which generally mitigates the process. I don’t comparison shop — if I find what I want, I buy it. My theory is running around from this place to that place only uses up time and gas, therefore finding what you want and simply buying it is the green thing to do. If I pay a bit more, so be it. It is done.

Much to my surprise, I was forced to go to three furniture stores before I found what I wanted, which was an oversized lounge chair with a lever to raise the feet. I had used the Internet to see what was available along these lines and even found which stores had what I sought, except the chair wasn’t there when I visited. I’m not patient about waiting six to eight weeks for something, so I forged on.

A circular in the newspaper led me to the third and final stop on my furniture quest. They had just what I wanted — a chair smaller than a loveseat, but larger than the average chair, perfect for two normal sized people, or one queen-sized person and a dog. Furthermore, it was leather and thus easily cleaned. I only had to wait one day for delivery and I have found the chair to be everything I wanted, and something more.

I’m not sure who makes this chair, but I call it the Narco-lounger. I am positive it gives off sleep inducing emissions. It is very dangerous.

Often, after several hours of work in one corner of my general use room, I arise from my desk and wander over to the chair to read for a bit to clear my head. Or watch a bit of a Netflix movie. You know, the work break. I think OSHA mandates 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes in the afternoon, but since I set my own schedule, I can adhere to whatever works for me. With more frequency than I like, the chair excursions turn into naps.

I’ll be reading and the next thing I know, it is two hours later and I awake to find a dog by my side and an open book on my chest. I’m a proponent of naps — personally I think they circumvent stress and anxiety — but I usually take to my bed for them. However, the Narco-lounger is now fully in control. I literally have to avoid the Narco-lounger when I take a break, unless I am prepared for a potential time out of short or long duration.

This could be easily understood if it only happened on those occasions when sleeping all night is a problem or if it is one of my infrequent bouts of insomnia, but it ain’t so. How long or how well I slept the night before seems to have no bearing on the problem, so it is clearly some unsafe emission from the chair itself.

There have been occasions in the morning when I have downed my usual one cup of espresso while reading the paper and WHAMMO narcolepsy strikes. It is very unsettling…and I think I’m gonna have to call the environmental protection folks to do an analysis of this chair’s clearly dangerous emissions. On the other hand, I’m still getting everything accomplished I’m required to, so where’s the harm?

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