Down to Earth

"You'll get an email, confirming your order, which goes to you and Gary," she says, explaining the supply process for the office to which I really ought to be paying attention, but this chair I'm sitting in is fascinating me.

It's orange plastic on a black metal frame, wide base both front-to-back and side-to-side, and it's very stable, like freakishly so. I'm used to tipping back in my chair, balancing on the two back legs, mitigating the boredom of everyday work (or school when I did it as a kid) with the occasional gut-dropping panic of almost falling back, and affecting a certain nonchalance with my unconventional sitting style.

But this chair, it won't tip back except with the application of quite a bit of force, and then it immediately tips back down to earth four-legs-square in a most irritating fashion, no matter what I seem to do, ruining the whole effect.