Things You Sit On
by Lore Sjöberg

Rocking Chairs
It's wonderful the stupid things we invent to help us deal with nevous tension: rocking chairs, stress balls, anatomically correct vibrating devices, so on and so forth. Rocking chairs are fun, no doubt about it, but they always make me think of grandmothers sitting and rocking and knitting and humming along the the radio. Grandmothers must have a LOT of nervous tension to work out. A

Lawn Chairs
Another thing I find amazing is how people so often invent things that seem to be carefully calculated to fail at their designed task. Take the lowly lawn chair. It burns your ass on sunny days, moistens your ass on dewy mornings, pokes little holes in your carefully-tended lawn, and tips over if you fall asleep. It would be hard to design a worse outdoor chair without making it irresistably delicious to squirrels. D+

Movie Theater Seats
Many improvements have been made to movie theater seats over the past decade or so. Too bad they haven't keep up with the degeneration in movie theaters themselves. I appreciate the tilting back and all, but it does me no good if it puts the back of my head in the popcorn barrel of the person behind me. D

Barstools
At first glance, you might say that these suffer from the same affliction as lawn chairs, but I think that the unsuitability of barstools for sitting on while drunk is an obvious boon to society. First off, falling of your stool and knocking it over when you get up convinces you that you're drunker than you are, reducing the number of drunk drivers on our nation's sidewalks. Secondly, they allow you to recognize the "seasoned wetbrains" (to quote Dorkin) in the bar: they manage to slump with a perfect sense of balance. B

Bean Bags
The reason these are so popular in dorm rooms and neo-hippy households is because the encourage contemplation -- profound thoughts like "If God is omnipowerful and benevolent, why can't I get out of this bean bag?" and "Nobody's noticed me holding out the bong and I can't get up; may as well take another hit." B-

High Chairs
Some people think that people like roller coasters because of the adrenalin rush. I think it's because we have suppressed memories of when life was novel and exciting and we were always being strapped into our seats. "Hey, I'm locked in and sitting! That means I'm either being transported someplace new or they're going to give me some food to throw!" Add a tray and a bib to your roller coaster and I bet you'll be breaking attendance records left and right. B+