Can a Chair Leave a Room? The HOA Convenes to Find Out

Old Business

Notice of the meeting had been delivered to every address on the lane, including the one beneath the porch at No. 2. Mrs. Delacroix-Burke reminded the room that this address is not a lot under the bylaws. Brenda, the domesticated bear who lives at the address beneath the porch at No. 2, was ruled a party in interest, the address having received the lane's mail longer than the Menons have received its casseroles. The party did not attend. Mr. Ferreira said he could build a better address.

The Cat-Owners' Caucus, which holds that a human with a cat has reached the highest form of human existence and that everyone else is still en route, convened an emergency session in the hallway when Mr. Menon remarked that the folded chair looked a little like a loaf, a posture the Caucus considers patented.

The session ran forty minutes. A motion to censure furniture for impersonation was moved, seconded and tabled, since Admiral Biscuit, the Caucus chair, slept through all of it, as did every other cat on the roll. The minutes describe the cats' position as restful and, on this occasion, final.

The chair was not a willing collaborator.

New Business

Ada and Felix Okafor-Lindqvist presented their exhibit, Can a Chair Leave a Room Without Leaving the Room?, to Mrs. Doris Kowalczyk, who judged from a stack of index cards. The chair was the FLEXISPOT Foldex, a mesh-backed office chair belonging to Raj and Priya Menon. Felix stated the hypothesis. Ada stated it again, slightly differently. Then the twins stated it at once, which Mrs. Kowalczyk entered as a third version.

Mrs. Menon reported that the chair body arrives assembled and that the only task was attaching the headrest with two screws. Mr. Menon said the assembly tab of the spreadsheet has one row. He said it with visible gratitude, like a man describing a short line at the bank.

The twins folded the backrest down, flipped the armrests up and rolled the chair under the desk, where it occupied what Felix measured as almost nothing. The rubric asked for room recovered. Ada recorded the room as recovered, with some left over.

The chair was not a willing collaborator. Its casters, built to roll on any surface, carried it off the rug, across the hardwood and, with no help from anyone, to the judge's knees at a speed Mrs. Kowalczyk called cordial. She took the opportunity to sit. She set the seat height, adjusted the tilt tension, tried the lumbar support at two heights and aimed the headrest with one hand, which she noted was possible because it moves in three dimensions. The mesh back and memory foam seat were, in her words, adequate in the best sense. She remained seated for the rest of the presentation, and the twins presented to a judge who had stopped being neutral.

ORACLE, asked to forecast the outcome, announced a 64.29 percent chance that the chair would be annexed by the Danube before eight o'clock. Mrs. Delacroix-Burke asked that the Danube be notified. The room waited past eight in case, which gave the twins extra minutes at the whiteboard and the presentation a noticeably better score.

Asked for drawbacks, Mr. Menon stated that the Foldex weighs 40 pounds, which he had confirmed by carrying it from the porch to the spare room in two stages. He added that it is recommended for up to 300 pounds of sitter and for indoor use only. Nobody objected. The room found this fair.

Adjournment

Mrs. Kowalczyk awarded the exhibit a blue index card reading Provisionally Excellent and entered the chair in the Lending Ledger under the Menons, with a note that it had lent itself. Felix requested that the note be amended to has been lending itself. Mrs. Kowalczyk said she would consult her sources.

The meeting adjourned at eight forty. The Danube had not claimed the chair. Mr. Menon asked that this be entered in the record, and Mrs. Delacroix-Burke said she would write to the Danube first thing. A copy of these minutes was delivered beneath No. 2. It was signed for, as always.