Clouds And Chairs

It started out as a rant in my head. "Why does some stupid Chinese middle manager in the Special Economic Zone think he's doing anyone any good by forcing his slaves to wrap these bloody chairs in miles of stupid plastic?" You know the thought. It goes round and round in your head as you struggle with some impossibly recalcitrant inanimate object. And then, squatting in the heat under the house waving your Leatherman around you focus your unreasonable, unreasoning ire on the human who must have been responsible for your predicament. And still the stupid plastic unravels inch by precious inch and gets caught in the screw heads and forces, forces I tell you, your Leatherman blade to scrape the painted metal thus causing the scratches the stupid plastic was supposed to prevent. And it's not my fault my hands are a bit greasy from fiddling with the motorcycle, is it?Which is when one realises one is being bloody stupid and the rant trails off into self conscious incoherence. Actually the new outdoor recliners look quite nice, at $69 apiece remarkably so. Even with more of that stupid ineffectual plastic clinging to the legs.And they look a lot nicer than the old plastic ribbed cushioned things that are mouldering and ready for the dump. Out with the old and in with the new.Somehow in the lottery of life I got to be born on the rich side of the blanket, the part that buys new chairs on a whim, that gets to toss out the old ones, too old and funky even for Habitat, and then I, the lucky one gets to test the new chairs on the dock, and gets to check out the sky and the clouds and the passing boats and the impossibly still waters of the canal that reflects the stormy summer skies.Hmmm. Life could be worse.