Pink Asparagus

I’m walking down the street wondering how I, Sal the singular seat, am going to change the world. I am just a Mid Century Modern wooden highchair. I’m one of those useless, reject chairs that someone thinks is a good idea, but we never sell. Not in this economy anyways. And the other part is, I’m uncomfortable to sit in. No parent would think me a suitable place for their child! I am a good option for the hip grandma that has too much to spend. In those cases, I never get sat in, which is nice I guess, but maybe having a purpose would be nicer.  At the moment I’m unemployed, and the room market is terrible, so I have not a room, a dollar or a reason to go on. I keep walking down the same street day in day out, wondering what the fuck I’m supposed to do with myself. Nobody in the room market wants any of my weird little skills. I’m just a wooden cage for babies fresh out of options. One time, a mother pointed at me and shrieked, “My baby would hate you!” Well, thank god, I didn’t want your baby drooling spit and mashed peas into my antique carvings anyways. 

One day, I’m on one of my walks and I see a row of theatre seats, walking in pairs, happily, armrests linked. Imagine I’m sighing deeply as I say this (because I am).  Theatre seats. Theatre. Seats. Theatre Seats are like the nepo babies of the chair world. They have opportunities that are less accessible to the average person. They get to sit around and watch movies all day. They don’t need to scour the room boards, and spend hours of their life writing letters to room owners. Sometimes I’m writing a cover letter, and I wonder what purpose it even serves. If the application asks for a candidate that’s been regularly re-upholstered, I will certainly fill my letter with made up stories about all the times I had my fabric changed. I’ll even add a cheeky line in at the end reassuring you that I am someone who “really values maintaining their upholstery”. Even after all of the effort of a letter where you beg a room owner to give you a chance, what do you get? Ghosted, usually. Or, you get a call back and the room they’re offering is somehow worse than being roomless. Theatre seats don’t do this. You see, they are exclusively headhunted at special parties that are invite only. They avoid the cover letter song and dance. Meanwhile, I’m out here commodifying myself all day just to find room where I can be comfortable. At this point, I feel like I could slap my SeatingIn profile onto my leg like a nutrition facts label. 10% able to hold multiple things at once. 65 grams of experience looking luxe. Recognized by woodworking college as  “distinguished chair of the year” two years in a row. Buy me for your room, so I’ll have a room to be in. 

The other thing about theatre seats is that they literally get to sit around and watch movies all day. They’re like tenured professors but instead of writing papers and making academic strides, they just have to watch every new release RIGHT when it comes out. I wonder if these parties are the only way to get in, or maybe, your parent needs to have been a theatre seat too. Maybe some of them had parents who were just desk chairs in high places. 

I am still on the walk but I’ve gone from self loathing to… fantasising. You see, I really would love to be a theatre seat. I would get to see all the newest movies, and one day, when streaming platforms take absolute control, I would get auctioned off and end up on a local vintage reseller’s instagram story sale. “Quirky upholstered MCM high chair theatre seat,” the ad would read, “Can be repurposed as a mudroom bench.” And then a woman with silver hair and multiple arts degrees would come pick me up to put in her well lit townhome, where I would never be sat in but definitely taken care of. She would probably get me a floral cushion. Maybe she’d even pay someone to give me a new stain. 

I wonder if… I would even be happier as a theatre seat. I guess I should try it out. Maybe the way I can change the world is by finding a way to become a theatre seat myself. It’ll be more effort than it’s worth but what else do I do? All I have is time, and I figure, better a theatre seat than a roomless MCM baby cage.

How would I do this? Well, I would start by putting up a sign that read, “Have you always wanted to be a theatre seat but no matter how much you learn about the movies, you never get an invite to the hiring parties?” outside the theatre. I figure lots of chairs feel envious  when they pass the theatre. I would use their feelings of inadequacy to further my agenda. If anyone is going to be the first not-headhunted theatre seat, it’ll of course be the one that starts the movement. I’m going to get everyone together, build morale, get it out the media and then the chair board will get the board chair to do a PR event where I get initiated as the first non-headhunted theatre seat! It’s fucking genius. 

That was an annoying plan. What I actually did was I stuck with the flyer and held the first “we want to be theatre seats” meet up at a pub. Everyone that showed up was really committed. When the barstool found out we were all fellow unemployed film aficionados, he served us for free. It was a magical night, ending with our unanimous commitment to wage physical war on the theatre seats that following morning. We would take edibles for the hangover and kitchen supplies for weaponry. WE loved movies just as much as the theatre seats in there, if not more. I was tired of being in grandma’s house. It was time for me to claim my place in the room where people go to watch art, get handjobs and eat popcorn. I padded my legs with colanders and strapped knives to my food tray. Boy was I going to puncture some upholstery tomorrow. 

We started the day at a crisp 6:00AM. We split up into 3 stacks: one stack for the left entrance, one stack for the right and one stack to cable drop from the control box. Seeing as I had initially put up the flyer, they let me join the cable drop group despite my disappointing physique. In the moments before going in, it suddenly got very real to me. Worst case, we’d lose and end up in the dump, best case I’d get a front row seat to movie watching for the rest of my life. We put on our furniture sliders and made our way to the control box. Did I even want to be a theatre seat? Upwards of 12 hours of pure screen time daily? Sharing a room with hundreds of other chairs? Being used so often and carelessly just so the theatre and the production company and the actors could make piles of cash? Was it worth being in the film industry if all I did was seat a movie goer? We were at the control box. There was no time for me to share my philosophical pondering now. We were doing this. That might’ve been the best part of it all. When you’re in something with other people, it’s much easier to overcome feelings of self doubt. Whenever I do something alone, I can get easily discouraged. 

The battle was bloody before I even had a chance to get involved. From the control room, I watched as chairs flung into the screen, shredding it into a pile of scraps. The theatre seats weren’t putting up much of a fight. Once the control box team started to cable down, the theatre seats completely gave up, fleeing the theatre one by one until it was just a large dark room. The chairs and I looked around. Without the seats, it was only a room. We sat in silence for a minute and then slowly, each chair picked a spot, settled in and became a theatre seat. I chose the back row, I liked being higher up I guess. And life went on. I seated a couple on the opening night of Cocaine Bear. They whisper-fought the whole time, and I didn’t even hear the details of how the bear actually got into the cocaine. I seated a girl who kept flinching at the violence in Bottoms. I wonder if she flinched during Fight Club? One time, a little kid threw up all over me because he got seasick watching The Little Mermaid live action movie. I barely got to see the sun, I was sat in more than ever before and I realized that this movie theatre played a lot of terrible movies. Despite all the challenges, it was at least nice to be somewhere that I’d always wanted to be. 

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