We have lived in our Covington house for 15 years, and in all that time I have never owned a decent office chair. I have been making do with a hard back chair and a folded yoga mat as a cushion.

I could easily have afforded an office chair but never went to the trouble to buy one. I was intimidated by the infinite selection of chairs, not knowing which one would last the longest. The first thing that breaks on fancy chairs is the height adjustment. A broken chair would whoosh to the bottom when I sat on it.

On one of our daily walks, we passed a dark brown leather office chair sitting at the curb for garbage pickup. I gave the chair a quick once over and rejected it, thinking either the height adjustment or one of the wheels was probably broken. When we passed the chair a second time, I tried it out. The chair was comfortable and everything worked, so I decided to roll it home. 

The chair was in good shape except for the seat back where tiny pinpricks of white padding showed through the leather. I darkened the pinpricks with a brown Sharpie and glued down a few tears along the piping. Then I cleaned the leather, rubbed a restorative oil into the surface, and polished it. Now I had what looked like a brand-new office chair. 

The chair makes me smile when I see it at my desk. Last night, I tilted back in it with my bare feet on the bed and read a used copy of Paul Krugman’s End This Depression Now! about how to end the Great Recession that followed the 2007-2009 financial crisis. Krugman believed a burst of government spending would stimulate the economy enough to restore consumer demand. 

Today, consumer demand is so high, and product supply is so low, that it’s driving up inflation. I’m doing my part to fight inflation by not ordering a fancy new chair.