Booster? You Brought’er.

I have a chair-to-table distance problem.

Have I mentioned the NYC apartment is furnished?** It’s tastefully appointed, thank goodness, but there are quirks. For example: the dining room table stands about 2.5 ft. tall. This is Yuri’s calculation, and he used his actual foot as a measuring stick, but it seems about right. The chairs at the table, the seats of them, they come up about 1.5 Yuri feet from the floor. This means that when I sit at the table, I have a Munchkin thing happening. It’s one thing to eat a meal eye-level with your food, but this set up is terrible for typing.

Presently, I am sitting atop a large stack of cushions. The large stack of cushions has replaced the small box of books I had been using all week; the box is breaking open and all squished, which let me tell you does wonders for my self-esteem. A delicate flower I am not.

I require a tuffet!

Or a booster seat.

Seriously, I need a booster seat. Because buying a taller chair is not an option. I live in Manhattan and I am not rich, therefore there is no room for extra chairs lying about. That’s precious square footage, comrade. If I could replace a shortie chair with a taller chair, well, then we’d be in the business, but these chairs do not belong to me. They stay.

As it turns out, there is a market for adult booster seats, though none of them I’ve found are for people who need a good, old-fashioned boost at the dinner table. There are adult booster seats for diminutive folks to put in the driver’s seat of their respective automobiles (good idea) and there are booster seats for the infirm or aged. Some of these boosters come spring-loaded, making it easier to get up out of one’s chair. That sounds like great fun. I’d love to spring! out of my chair whenever I felt like getting up, but these chairs don’t seem to add much height — their “boost” is a boost out, not up.

I worked at Pizza Hut for two years in high school. One of our “sidework” jobs was to “wipe down the boosters.” Oh, the accumulated hours spent sani-wiping sauce- and parmesan cheese-encrusted red plastic seats. I’ll never get that time back. Of course, I was a junior in high school and failing Algebra II, so I don’t think I’d take it back if I could.

Yuri says he’ll buy me a booster seat. It’s turning into a kind of “If I can’t buy my baby a booster chair, what kind of man can I be?” thing, but I actually don’t know if we’ll have luck. The car seat things are ugly and might not work in a wooden chair. The geriatric versions are not exactly right so far. And as much as the man appreciates my, um… As much as Yuri enjoys watching me leave a room, he has to admit that my bum is not going to fit into a child’s booster seat. Which would be weird of us, anyhow, and probably intensely uncomfortable for me.

Should I make something? From scratch? Should I make a tuffet from scratch??

These are the questions.

** It has recently come to my attention that I repeat myself. My sister made it clear last night at dinner, exasperated that I had told her a certain something at least twice before. It has recently come to my attention that I repeat myself. My sister and I were having dinner.