I Got a New Chair Today.

When I got to work today, there was a new chair at my desk. I had been wanting a new one as the old one was at least 3 ½ years old, and like most of the furnishings and equipment in my classroom, I had inherited it from my predecessor. Today is also the day we were expecting a visit from the corporate office's director of curriculum. We are a lonely outpost seldom visited by anyone from those distant parts. Even before I had sat down in the chair and fingered its firm cushions and luxuriant newness, I remembered the film Stalag 17, how the Germans had given new blankets to the prisoners-of-war only to take them away after the visiting Red Cross officials had left. I sat down and leaned back. There was not the creaking sound that I had become accustomed to, the one that would always disturb the rare silence that would fall over the crowded room during a testing session.