Fucking chair!!
For ten dollars I bought a wooden chair at the Habitat for Humanity Home Store. The trip started out not as a shopping expedition but an effort to off-load two used shower enclosures that have accumulated during the past five years of "nesting" here at my also-rehabbed, historic homestead. (My brother and wife are coming to town, and I am trying to fluff the place up for their visit.) It's true, I do need a few chairs, having recently given away two out of six brand new ones to my daughter to take with her to school (they were new--clean, solid, but boring). So, at the time, this ten dollar chair seemed like a bargain (solid wood, sturdy legs, what more could anyone ask for?); however, since bringing the chair home on Friday, I have clocked a minimum of five hours hard labor trying to clean off what, in the dimly-lit Habitat warehouse, impressed me as "patina"; the thing is (still) caked in grime--thick, bumpy, black filth! Hell, if I count the trip to Lowes yesterday, time and material, this cruddy relic is now worth the ten-dollar purchase price plus eight hours labor and thirty-five dollars in "parts" (rubber gloves, turpentine, sandpaper, lindseed oil, wire brushes, steel wool, a stunning drill-bit plumed with copper wire, and white vinegar, which works relatively well, btw, especially when compared to the paint thinner I already tried, for cutting through years of greasy-handed kitchen/dining slime). I predict that by the time I am "finished," this chair will either constitute a family heirloom or a highly-flammable addition to my already eclectic pile of firewood!
As I said, "Buyer Beware!!" My hands are raw, my arms are sore, and the chair still looks like shit.
No comments:
Post a Comment