The 31 Steps You Must Take In Order To Buy One Stupid Chair

Same goes for all furniture, really.

Designed in Canva by the author

Steps 1–3: Go to a furniture store and spot a red armchair. Consider buying it until the salesperson points out other chairs with reclining, swiveling, and manual versus power options. Abandon all hope after a quick Google search reveals the furniture store’s environmental footprint, murky dealings overseas, and stance on chip double-dipping.

Step 4: Back at home, start scrolling chairs online until your social media algorithm fills your feed with furniture advertisements and clips of babies almost falling off sofas. This step should last approximately two-to-seven months.

Steps 5–6: After learning that new furniture releases toxins, enroll yourself in an online chemistry class so you can better understand how to purchase a chair without poisoning yourself and everyone you know. Just to be safe, get rid of all of your existing furniture and adjust to life sleeping and eating on your linoleum floor.

Step 7: While you’re at it, take a class on dyeing fabrics and geometry. It’s the only way you’ll be able to really nail the exact color that matches everything you will ever own and the proportions of a single chair that will fit the heights and weights of anyone who might sit in it, including your future children.

Steps 8–9: Decide you need a more all-encompassing approach and look up “chair school.” Be surprised when you learn there’s no such thing as “chair school.”

Steps 10–15: Find a man in Sweden who builds custom furniture, and then move to Sweden, learn Swedish, and work as his apprentice. Try not to fall in love with him, even though he’s basically Sex & the City’s Aiden before the reboot ruined him.

Step 16: Move back home a year later and test out your newfound knowledge by opening up your own chair shop called The Chair-y On Top.

Steps 17–18: Respond to customers who don’t understand why you’re selling only chairs by explaining to them that you have no furniture. Don’t forget to mention your concerns about new furniture toxins, your dream of opening a “chair school,” and your recent realization that you love Swedish Aiden.

Step 19: Go bankrupt.

Step 20: Move into your parents’ garage where the only thing you can sit on is your feelings of failure.

Steps 21–22: Save money by teaching Swedish. Charge a lot because chairs are weirdly expensive and you still hope to buy a chair one day.

Steps 23–24: Get your own apartment and start scrolling chairs online again. End up with a feed full of chairs tipping over after cats surprise-attack their owners from behind. This step should last approximately eight-to-ten months.

Step 25: Send sketches to furniture stores with your idea of the perfect chair — one that can change shape and color by magic and has a protective cat shield.

Steps 26–27: Check your email every hour for four months but get exactly zero responses. After following up repeatedly, become the first person to get an email-specific restraining order.

Step 28: Develop a severe eye twitch.

Steps 29–30: See your doctor who tells you that you have a rare ocular condition caused by searching for the perfect chair for five years, and you’ll need to wear an eyepatch for the rest of your life. Return home worried that Swedish Aiden will never love you back because you look like a cartoon pirate, eat on the floor, and are obsessed with the idea of a Transformers movie that introduces a new character who is both man and chair.

Step 31: Go to that first store you visited and buy the red chair.