Of Pea Green Chairs and Everlasting Love

Few people would wander into a thrift store on a Wednesday afternoon, spy a pea green chair worthy of Archie Bunker, and think, "I have to have that!"

Then again, the husband and I aren't particularly in the habit of avoiding what "few people do."

When we were newly married, he dropped out of seminary to pursue another career. We sold most of our furniture and moved halfway across the country to settle ourselves sight unseen in a new city for the three years he would be in school. On our meager income, we furnished our tiny apartment with secondhand furniture. In the very beginning, we had...

a dining room table and chairs, $125

a dark green recliner, $40

a pea green recliner, $25.

Within a few years, the dark green recliner had fallen victim to the cat's claws, but the dining set and pea green recliner have traveled with us from house to house over the last twelve years. We sanded the table (with the exception of the leaf) to a beautiful light shade and gave it a coat or two of polyurethane. Then the children added the finishing touches using various shades of permanent markers and oil paints. It currently resides in our third child's bedroom, topped with jewelry, little girl books, and art supplies. Which leaves the pea green recliner...

Despite years of begging, my husband refuses to part with it. He denies my suggestion that it would look lovely in his office. He insists it remain an integral part of our living room decor. (In case you were wondering, our living room couches are blue, with not a spot of green to pull the chair into the decorative scheme). He's kind of, sort of in love with that monstrosity.

So when I saw a second pea green chair in a local thrift shop, I was as surprised with myself as you might be had you seen a pea green chair and thought, "I have to have that!"

But here's the thing: I've realized my husband and I might not grow old to sit on our porch in white rockers. We might just opt for pea green chairs. Not because there is anything inherently better about pea green chairs - They certainly aren't prettier than white rocking chairs! - but we have this pea green chair that's been with us almost since the beginning. It's a part of us - of our past, of our present, and it seems, of our future. Somewhere along the way, though I hate to admit it, I've come to cherish the old pea green beast enough to think we ought to have a friend.

That said, even I'm perplexed by this turn of events...