Stools Are Bullshit

You might want to sit down for this one. Unless, of course, the seat closest to you is a stool. In that case, stand with some dignity, because stools are bullshit.

I’m currently in the process of decorating a new apartment, my first time living sans-roommates in a very long time (please, hold your applause.) The process of living alone after rooming with a bunch of assholes is a cathartic one, but also one defined by the realization that you don’t actually own anything and you need to buy things. Stat. It’s led me down the ever-winding and ultimately expensive road of purchasing kitchen furniture, i.e., things to eat my luxurious baby food upon. It’s been an illuminating experience in just how challenging and mostly upsetting the entire furniture buying process is, especially when it comes to dining sets.

You’d think buying a table and placing some chairs around a flat surface would be a walk in the park, but it’s not. At some point in the 20th and 21st century, probably, some sociopathic designer decided all proper dining chairs would be backless and propelled into the air at obscene heights by thin tubes—sometimes, a single tube—of metal, or wood, or god forbid, plastic. Yes, stools are everywhere, apparently marketed for their “modern, sleek” appeal, but they suck. (You’d think we, as a society in 2018, would avoid doing anything originally introduced in Byzantium by the Varangian Guard prior to 600 A.D., but whatever.)

Listen, I know stools can be kinda cute. Do a quick google search. Adorable! This one looks like a macaron! It also costs, like, 100 Euro. Reeeeally think about that. If you were to buy a stool (confection-shaped and otherwise) what are you actually purchasing?

Whose tiny tuchus would enjoy their morning coffee on one of these human torture devices? Who among us wakes up and thinks, “Yes, I’d love to start my week with some unnecessary lower back pain.” And what about those who’ve been described as “clumsy” or “uncoordinated,” or, perhaps by a past partner, “barely erect”? There’s no hope for us, you and I, and at some point we will fall off of a stool. If we don’t fall, we will continuously stumble, slip, and slide our knees into jagged table edges. We will be known for our shin bruises, and our friends will express concern.

You might be thinking, “You’re cynical, pal. I love stools! My mother was a stool, and her mother, and her mother’s mother…” Well, sheep of the hassock industry, I urge to consider other, much more comfortable seating options. Like a chair: