Goldilocks and the Three Chairs

Today we have a remake of a beloved children's classic, updated for the computer age and for adult concerns. You will notice some liberties taken in this remake -- why remake something if not to take liberties with it? -- but the theme remains pretty much the same, which is the ever-consuming search for personal comfort. In this story Goldilocks's gender has changed, and she is called Joe.

Once upon a time Goldilocks, whose real name was Joe, was not happy with his computer chair at home. "This chair is too low," he said. So he scoured the house to find a chair that was higher, and brought all the likely candidates into the study so he could try them out at his desk. One by one he scooted them up to his desk, wiggled around, and pretended to type at his keyboard. He frowned.

"Hmmm," he thought. "None of these are just right."

So Joe went off to a store to find a chair that was just right. He came home with a fancy antique office chair, which he knew would please his wife -- who, he felt, was much more interested in how a thing looks than in how it feels -- and tried it out.

"Ahhh," he said. "This chair is just right."

But some time later later Joe began to feel that the chair was not so comfortable. "The arms are in my way," he said. "I need another chair."

So he looked around the house again and found a small antique rocker he had bought to go next to the new fireplace. "Ahhh," he said. "I will try this chair."

Joe thought he might like the rocker as his desk chair, but he kept the office chair nearby just in case. The office chair occupied the middle of the small room, getting in everyone's way, swiveling every time someone passed and set up a small breeze. Joe's wife did not like the chair in the middle of the room, and Joe promised that he would move it to a more convenient location, but no convenient location presented itself in a timely manner, and he gradually forgot about the chair being in the middle of the room. Soon the chair disappeared under a heap of papers and CDs and Kleenex boxes and backpacks and everything else that did not have a proper home.

As more time went on, Joe began to dislike the rocker. "It's making my hands hurt when I type," he said. So he shoved the rocker into the middle of the room, next to the office chair, and fetched an extra kitchen chair from its forgotten place in the basement.

"Ahhh," he said. "This chair doesn't make my hand hurt. It's just right."

There were now two chairs in the middle of the room, which Joe's wife severely frowned upon, because they tripped her every time she walked by. Joe assured her that he would move the chairs, although privately he thought she was just clumsy, and wished that he could keep the two chairs there for a while, just in case he might want to try one of them at his desk again.

But presently his wife did more than just frown about the two chairs, and Joe was compelled to clean off the heap of papers and CDs and Kleenex boxes and backpacks and everything else that had accumulated on the chairs, and take them down into the basement.

He returned to his desk and sat down in the extra kitchen chair, satisfied. Then he looked at his keyboard. "Hmmm," he thought. "This keyboard is not very comfortable anymore..."