Evil Chair: “Perspective”

Posted on November 16, 2004 by Jenna

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Jaime doesn’t know what to do.

“I don’t know what to do!” he exclaims.

So he stands up. He goes to his porch. His porch extends out over the ocean. He takes out a giant saw and cuts his porch off from his house. He and his porch drift out to sea.

“La la la, ” he says.

But in the end, as he always does, he finds himself at the Island of Evil Chair.

This is the island of Evil Chair!
If you like the furniture you see here
You can buy it at Tortoise Market Square!

Maude the Modular Bookshelves walks along the shore. She sings her song to herself:

Here are the Modular Bookshelves
Don’t need assembly
She does that herself
She’s independent, wild, and free—

She stops short. “Oh my,” she says. “It’s Jaime! He’s washed up on the beach again!”

Jaime flops on the beach. He is laying on his back. He burbles. Water burbles out of his mouth.

“Are you all right?” she asks him.

Jaime sits up. He processes the situation. “I’ll be fine,” he says. “I just can’t seem to get away from the Island of Evil Chair. But why are you wandering alone, Maude?”

“Because I’m made with uncompromising Swiss quality,” she says.

He looks at her. She deflates a little.

“And I had a fight with Colt. So I’m walking on the beach and ignoring him, and he’s hiding behind those rocks sulking.”

Jaime stands up. He looks behind the rocks. He sees Colt the Coat Rack. Colt is sulking.

“I see,” Jaime says. “What did you fight about?”

“I thought that Colt went better by the entryway,” says Maude. “But he thought that I should be in the entryway. Boys,” she mutters.

Jaime laughs.

“What?” Maude says.

“Colt,” Jaime says. “Come here.”

Colt shuffles embarrassedly out from around the rocks. “I was sulking,” he says, sulkily.

Jaime raises an eyebrow.

“And meditating on my polished mahogany sheen,” Colt adds. “I mean, there was that too.”

“So,” Jaime says, “did either of you ever try thinking about things from the other person’s perspective?”

Maude squinches two shelves closer together suspiciously. “That sounds like a fool’s game.”

“Well,” Jaime asks her, “why do you think Colt wanted you in the entryway?”

Maude shakes her head. “No idea!”

“Why don’t you try pretending to be him by singing the Colt song?”

Maude hesitates. Then she tries it:

Here is one of our fine coat racks,
Twenty bucks and we’ll pay the tax
You can hang your hat
Or you can hang a coat
You can hang your bag or you can hang your tote!

She thinks about it. “Well,” she says, “I guess that most people who come to the island want to take off their coats and hang them immediately.”

“Right,” Jaime says.

“But!” says Maude. “Most people who come to the island wash up on the shore, not by the door!”

“Right!” Jaime says. He takes off his dripping, waterlogged coat. He hangs it on Colt.

“Now I can’t see,” Colt says.

“Try imagining,” Jaime says. “Can you imagine things from Maude’s perspective?”

Even as Colt starts to sing:

Here are the Modular Bookshelves—

there is activity elsewhere on the island. On a high cliff overlooking the beach, Evil Chair laughs as thunder booms!

“Ahaha!” laughs Evil Chair. “Jaime has returned. And he is teaching the foolish furniture the benefits of perspective!”

“That’s right,” Jaime calls up the cliff.

“That,” shouts Evil Chair, “shall be your … final! … mistake!”

He begins to sing the Evil Chair song.

Here is the evil chair.
He’s bad feng shui.
He shouldn’t be there!
He’ll mess up your luck,
One two three,
So throw him off the cliff
Immediately!

Colt says, hesitantly, “I still can’t see, but now I realize that Maude shouldn’t be in the entryway. There are no books there.”

“That’s right!” Jaime says.

Evil Chair shouts down, “Good happy feng shui furniture of the Island of Evil Chair! You’ve misjudged me!”

“Ha!” shouts Maude. “We’re still on to your tricks from the last time Jaime washed up here!”

“You think you’re on to my tricks?” asks Evil Chair. “How can you know—when you haven’t seen things from … my perspective?”

Jaime looks thunderstruck. Colt bumps into the cliff. Maude frowns as bitterly as a set of modular bookshelves can frown.

“We could try it,” says Maude, reluctantly. “It’s good to see things from others’ perspective.”

“Yes!” cackles Evil Chair. “Yes! My perspective is as valid as your own!” He sings, evilly:

This is the song of Evil Chair—

Maude and Colt sing along:

Bad decor should be everywhere

Evil Chair sings:

Your eye for taste
Tells you to run
But Evil Chair Decor says, “This room is fun!”
This is the song of Evil Chair!

Maude and Colt sing:

Bad decor should be everywhere!

Maude turns desperately to Jaime. “It’s insidious!” she says. “How can we tell bad feng shui from good feng shui when fairness requires that we treat all design ideas equally?”

But Jaime is climbing the cliff. He is grimly determined. Evil Chair knocks over a water glass so that, for a moment, it looks as if Jaime is climbing through a fierce rain.

“Evil Chair!” Jaime says, reaching the summit. “You are a false prophet.”

“I’m not ergonomic,” cries Evil Chair, “but maybe I shouldn’t be!”

“Moral relativism isn’t a weapon,” Jaime says, grimly. “It’s not for fueling proselytism. It’s a tool people should use on their own to limit their arrogance!”

Tip of the Day: Don’t let people tell you that you shouldn’t judge whether they’re right or wrong. Let them build a case for being right instead.

Your being a humble person is your job, not theirs!
Try it and see!

“It’s that time again,” Jaime says.

“Oh, no!” cries Evil Chair.

Jaime picks up Evil Chair. He grunts. He strains. Then he throws Evil Chair off the cliff. Evil Chair rolls across the beach and into the sea.

“I’ll be back!” cries Evil Chair. “You and I, Jaime! Locked in combat! We will always be drawn back to … THE ISLAND OF EVIL CHAIR!”

This was the island of Evil Chair!
If you liked the furniture you saw here
You can buy it at Tortoise Market Square!

5050 Swan Lake Drive, in Kenmore.