in which the Rambler is, plainly, accursed.

...which is worse, somehow, than just being "cursed," and definitely much worse than just being "cussed," which I've quite gotten used to in the last "mumble mumble" years.

At any rate! When I took up ministry at Most Holy & Undivided, the sitting-needs of the congregants at occasions other than worship (for which we are provided with fairly penitential pews of great antiquity) were met, so to speak, by a great many Horrible Stacking Chairs with metal legs and plastic seats'n'backs in virulent hues, i.e. burnt orange and bright turquoise. (Pause to let you visualize this)

Two things about these chairs...every. single. last. one. of them already was cracked in the plastic aspect of its being. And every. single. last. one. of them had been "repaired" in the previous year by a parishioner who had (UNASKED, mind you) replaced the screws holding the repellent plastic bits (cracked, as I mentioned), to the metal frames.

(I have looked and looked on Google and can't find anything even approximately as ugly as these chairs.)

Although they were uncomfortable, dangerous (I mentioned the cracks, right?) and destructive (their gnarly little metal feet, or leg-ends, chewed up floors something wonderful)...they were by virtue of all the screw-replacement work done on them, SACROSANCT FOREVER.

Some years ago, we were offered replacements...not much newer, but chairs with laminated wood backs and seats -- not cracked! We took the offer (which was free) and we attempted -- since we were FORBIDDEN to consider disposing of the plastic jobbies -- to put the new wooden chairs in stacks IN FRONT OF the Plastic Horribles, in the storage room.

This mainly served to stimulate the chair-mending parishioner to rearrange the storage whenever he got the chance, so as to bring his handiwork to the fore.

At any rate...after much argle and bargle...other parishioners have given us some thousands of dollars worth of brand-new comfortable stacking chairs.

And arranged to have the Plastic Horribles carried away forever to some Place of Eternal Recyclement. This work was supposed to happen today. I arrived in the early afternoon to find, becalmed in the parking lot under my office window, the large Junk Truck, loaded with chairs...and its hood open, and battery-paraphernalia lying about in the middle distance, and jumper cables much in evidence.

I thought, "That's it! We're stuck with these...blessed...chairs forever and ever amen" -- but I see just now that they did manage to get the truck re-started, and it, and the horrible chairs, have vanished into the hinterland.

Thanks be.