The Trouble With Wicker

                                                                         By Deborah Ann Richman

It seems one of those laws of nature that when one chooses to write about the funny things that happen in life, that funny things will happen to that one who made that choice.  Although, I have been presented with the possibility that it’s not that funny things happen but that that one just sees most things in life as funny; I like both explanations and think they both work.  It’s kind of like the adage; which came first, the chicken or the egg?

It is especially funny to have funny things happen when one is trying to be, shall we say, a little devious, a little underhanded or scheming a little scheme. 

The just mentioned scheme unfolding went something like this:

When my husband Trevor and I lived in a little one-bedroom apartment in the city I was the first time that we had lived alone together, both having kids when we started out on this adventure, we call marriage.  I loved our little apartment and I loved it being just the two of us and for the most part I was very content with all our little things but I am a Leo and just the kind of person that just likes to change things up now and then unlike Trevor, a Taurus who could have all our little things stay the same and never sees the need for domestic changes or the need for something else to come into our little one bedroom apartment that is only going to make looking for the remote on Sunday when Arsenal is playing even more difficult. 

And although we are both the type of people that like going treasure hunting at second hand stores, Trevor looks for small things like old books and fine china teacups that can still fit in to a one-bedroom apartment, I tend to look for things a little more difficult to squeeze in like furniture.  So, as I said above, if I see something that I really like and want to have, I have to get a little inventive on how to convince the husband that we really need it and that he really does want to lug it out of the store into the car or van, out of the car or van and up into the apartment and that, yes indeed, there is room for it/them.

So, one day when we were out and about, I saw two big beautiful wicker chairs in the window of one of the second-hand shops we frequent and though I didn’t immediately come up with a plan, the old wheels started turning.  After doing a couple of other things we stopped at the shop and began looking around.  I didn’t head straight for the wicker chairs or act in anyway excited to see them because I knew if I jumped the gun it would just be an out and out, “No, we don’t have room for anymore furniture!” 

Now, don’t get me wrong, my husband is not a tyrant and for the most part he tries to be accommodating to my needs and wants and all that but as mentioned before, he is a Taurus and has definite opinions about how much stuff he can live comfortably with.  Here’s the rub though, like I said above, I am a Leo and though I am not a tyrant and for the most part I try to be accommodating to his wants and needs, I too have definite opinions about how much stuff he can comfortably live with.  So, now you see the reason I at times feel a little sting needs to come into play.

Now, back to the wicker chairs.  After I had for what I considered to be the proper interval of time of looking around the second hand shop and saw that Trevor was quite involved in looking a something or other, I casually walked over to the beautiful set of wicker chairs in the window and decided I had better sit in one and see if I liked it before I started the sure to follow, “Battle of the Wicker Chairs.”  So, I sat.  And yes, I found it to be most comfortable, I just seemed to be sinking into the beautiful wicker chair like it was a cloud and loved it but then it happened…I realized I wasn’t stopping sinking into the beautiful wicker chair, I just kept sinking and sinking until it finally dawned on me that I was falling backwards.  Now, I don’t know what kind of quantum rabbit the universe had to pull out of it’s hat to do this trick but several things were able to take place in that fall before I hit the ground.  The first was that I thought,

“Oh my God it’s finally happened!  My arse is too big for wicker!”

The next was that, as I started going further back into my wicker cloud and my feet left the floor that strange thing happened, I’m guessing because of a shift in gravity to the inner workings of the body or maybe it’s just that the small intestines being closer to the floor got the message to be a bit spooked and react before the brain has a chance to keep it all together, so I lost control of my bodily functions and passed gas or as they say in some circles – I farted.  Now, I’m not sure what other trick the universe and that quantum rabbit had to pull out of it’s hat a second time to do it but I not only had time to do this once in my quantum slow motion free fall but I had time to do it twice.  And after that I still had time to worry if anyone had heard me, have a quick look around, change plans for next weeks dinner menu and revise it to not have the Boston Baked Beans on Thursday just in case the barbeque we were going to on Friday involved wicker.  Okay, I made that last part up; I knew there were not going to be wicker chairs at that barbeque but there could be folding chairs involved.

So, then the inevitable finally happened; I hit the floor.  And as so often happens with me when I am in the midst of doing something stupid…I had to say something stupid.  So, I called out to no one in particular,

“Hey, I don’t think this chair works…unless of course you’re suffering from flatulism retention; then it’s a real steal!”

I was able to next, from my unique perspective, look down the very row where my husband was standing looking at something right at the moment he looked up and saw me lying there in the beautiful wicker chair and started laughing.  He started walking towards me and stated the obvious,

“Did you fall over?”

I tried hard not to get the, someone just stated the obvious look on my face and said,

“No honey, these are those new reclining rattan chairs that are all the rage.  You must have seen the commercials?”

Then I started to laugh and we both laughed as he helped me off the floor and out of the beautiful wicker chair.  And I know it will be hard to believe, especially for those of you that know what a suave and sophisticated woman I am; this wasn’t the first time my husband has picked me up off the floor, ground, creek, lake, dirt pile, snow bank or ball pit just to mention a few places he has seen me arse over tea kettle.  The good news is we both had a laugh and I generally felt as though I’d gotten my exercise for the day.

And funnily enough, the idea of purchasing the beautiful wicker chairs never did come up.  And in all fairness to my arse, I will close by just mentioning that it turned out the beautiful wicker chair that I had decided to test was missing a brace from the bottom and was immediately removed from the display window.  Yep, the chicken or the egg,