Strange Conversations: Part One Hundred and Sixty-Two
Posted 7 July 2009 in Strange Conversations by Catriona
ME: I was wondering . . .
NICK: Yes?
ME: No, never mind.
NICK: No, what is it?
ME: I’ve decided not to ask any more questions.
NICK: Ever?
ME: Well, that would be silly.
NICK: I didn’t think you’d be able to keep that up.
ME: Thank you. No, I’ve just decided not to ask any more questions about why there’s a bag of onions on my death chair.
NICK: Ah. Well, there’s an explanation for that . . .
ME: Let me guess. They started out as milk?
NICK: And time makes fools of us all.
ME: Well, it certainly makes a fool of you with startling regularity.
NICK: Bloody hell!
Share your thoughts [7]
1
Wendy wrote at Jul 7, 09:20 pm
death chair?
2
Catriona wrote at Jul 7, 09:35 pm
Yes, I suppose that must look a little confusing from the outside.
For Christmas a few years ago, my parents restored for me a beautiful set of nineteenth-century American spindleback chairs, which we always call the “Wild Bill death chairs,” for this reason.
I hadn’t thought how odd that must look.
3
Tim wrote at Jul 8, 12:57 am
> NICK: And time makes fools of us all.
ME: Well, it certainly makes a fool of you with startling regularity.
Oh, snap!
4
Wendy wrote at Jul 8, 11:49 am
ok. i understand the death chair now. was a little concerned there for a while.
5
Catriona wrote at Jul 8, 12:31 pm
It’s odd, isn’t it, when you don’t realise how incomprehensible these things are from the outside?
We also have a table that we always call “the swan table,” even though it doesn’t actually have a swan on it. (It once briefly housed a swan-shaped lamp—for about a month, three or more years ago.)
So we say to people, “Oh, it’s on the swan table,” and then wonder why they look so bewildered.
6
Wendy wrote at Jul 9, 09:25 pm
a swan table sounds nice
7
Catriona wrote at Jul 9, 09:42 pm
Eh, it’s okay. It’s a pretty enough table, but it’s a pedestal design, so you can’t really put anything on it (certainly nothing heavy) unless it’s directly in the middle of the table, and yet it’s quite a large table.
It’s yet another one of my parents’ auction finds that they couldn’t find room for. My father is incapable of not buying something if it’s going cheaply at auction, even when he has neither use nor room for it. And since I’m the only child who lives within driving distance (and not across water or actually in their house), I’m the one who gets most of the cast-offs.
Quite useful when I was an impoverished graduate student, actually!