Stalking the perfect chair

Last time, we left off with the Princess stalking an office chair in an antiques mall. The chair was loaded on a dolly, and both had gone missing...

"Office chair on the move," I texted the Hero. "In pursuit."


I deduced that there had not been enough time for the entire dolly to be unloaded into the van parked outside the antiques mall, so THAT dolly must not have been the one containing the chair. 

The aisles in the store had street names like Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Other Midwest states that start with I or M, etc. Somewhere in Ohio I spied the dolly with the chair still on it, and a couple standing nearby. They were unloading  the dolly items to put in their booth, so I waited patiently while they took everything except the chair off and carefully arranged it with the other items they were selling. The chair sat alone on the dolly for several agonizing moments.


I went to find the Hero, which proved to be an almost fatal delay. By taking my eyes off that chair I had gone against the express advice of my sister, who, exasperated after watching numerous times as an antique item I had expressed interest in but had not claimed was carried off by another shopper, said, "When you see something you like, or that you think you might like but aren't sure yet, or that you abhor but do not want to fall into the hands of a lady with an obnoxious laugh and unfortunate fringed purse, you should snatch it up and carry it around."


This advice, though invaluable, did not seem to fit this particular situation. So I urgently texted "Subject spotted/Ohio," and by the time I located the Hero and we returned, there were two other women lurking around MY chair. They were discussing where it could go in the older woman's kitchen, which I thought was totally inferior to where I was planning to put it, but did not say anything.


The Hero's years of experience with antiquing and dealing took over, and soon I was seated in the chair and being asked if it was comfortable, too short, too tall, too wobbly, too stiff, etc. The two ladies looked on, willing it to be too SOMETHING so they would have a chance at it. But we had our quarry, and I pronounced it JUST RIGHT.


Our patience and diligence paid off, which showed the importance of having a Plan A in such situations. It soon became apparent that we should also have had a Plan B: how to reconcile our belief that we could buy a chair, a garden fence, and sundry other large and small items (there WERE several storms while we shopping) with the fact that we had one tiny Saturn Ion to put them all in. A tiny Saturn Ion that was already half-filled with luggage.


With some creative maneuvering ("If you sit with your torso in the front seat and your legs in the back seat, I think we can get this chair in underneath you"), we were successful, and thankful that we were not stopped by the police on the way home, as this would have required emptying half the car just for the Hero to have been able to reach his important documents.  


The chair looks perfect at my similar-era desk -- which is so massive the Hero refers to it as the Beast -- although due to the fact that in our old home nothing is straight or square or flat, the chair is wont to roll of its own accord across the floor, usually while I am sitting in it.


Even as we enjoy our new purchases, we are contemplating Plan C: a new -- and larger -- car...